MVC as best practice for professional level programming?

Question

Long time lurker, first time poster...

I'm now at the point where I'd almost call myself a professional grade PHP programmer and have a lot of code I re-use in various projects. Also, a lot of Open Source packages I've worked with use the MVC model and as a result I've done a lot of research recently into how it all works so I can better edit them as required.

At this point, I'm considering taking a bare-bones MVC framework (from a tutorial) and extending it as required for my forthcoming programming jobs.

My question is whether the MVC model with pretty much all application logic separated from the presentation layer is considered best practice over a well structured OOP website with coding on the page as necessary e.g setting function variables.

Or will I run into issues when I want coding flexibility e.g.

• using something like PHPthumb for a gallery where I want different output sizes on different pages and currently set parameters in the head of the page
• a contact form with x fields and a feedback form with y fields - will this require 2 differrent models rather than a generic form class again with some parameters set in the head of the page
• some pages requiring ob_start() and ob_flush() but not others?

Please don't tell me not to build my own framework - I'd rather know how each little bit works than use a slab of code I know nothing about - I'm really interested in the opinion of people who have gone this route and build sites every day. What are the real pros and cons of this over plain (but well structured) OOP and bunch of pages to a site as opposed to 1 index.php page and separate files.

Cheers, Niggles

Answer 1

I know you say you don't want this advice, but don't write your own. The first thing I've done at every single job I've ever worked at is picked up some existing code or framework, often commercial but highly modified, and begun maintaining it. You'll seldom get the option to write your own, and doing so is a bad idea. It's hard, expensive, and somebody else has already written a better MVC PHP framework than you're likely to write.

There are literally dozes of mature PHP frameworks, most of which have been around for over a decade. Choose one of them. It doesn't matter which one - they're all maintained by a dozen people at least as smart as you who've been writing MVC frameworks a lot longer, and have spent months or years refining their frameworks and listening to user input.

All that said, if you want to write your own on your own time, as a hobby, so you're not wasting your boss's money, then by all means. There's a huge variety of interpretations of MVC. Some frameworks view views as basically templates. I personally think you can throw as much raw PHP in there as you'd like, so long as it's purpose is display, and you do the usual smart things like distilling out shared code into functions. Some frameworks have virtually no business logic in the models (where it belongs IMO) but have very heavy controllers. The best thing you can do is try other frameworks and see how they work, and which you like best, and decide what you'd like to see changed. Then, set out to change it in your own.

You say you're almost ready to consider yourself a professional? The hardest lesson I had to learn was that professionals don't write their own low-level libraries. They don't reinvent the wheel on the company buck. They use off-the-shelf components and get the job done today, rather than a month from now. You don't want to use a slab of unfamiliar code? That's the biggest part of your life to come as a programmer - get used to it.

Answer 2

Writing your own framework is great for your own edification and for truly understanding the language.

Personally I find its as time consuming using a third party framework as it is to write your own. Yet I have total control of my own code, not something you can claim with any third party framework.

I also think many MVC frameworks are very resource intensive. For high volume sites you need to be prepared to throw hardware at them to get them to run nicely. For low volume sites (the majority) the rapid development of a third party MVC framework is a huge bonus.

So in my opinion if you have the time, roll your own and be proud of it. Just make sure you learn from others especially where security is concerned.