Why should i learn a PHP framework? [closed]

Question

I dont mean that petulantly, but is there anything wrong with hand coding all of your PHP? I see alot on this site/many others that to go for PHP jobs, etc that its essential to learn a framework like Zend, CakePHP or similar?

Answer 1

I would say that before you learn any kind of PHP framework you first understand PHP as well as you possibly can, it pros and cons and its nuances. Many will argue that using a framework straight off means you are learning the framework not the language.

Edit-

Once you become comfortable with PHP then go ahead and learn a framework, you're right, a lot of PHP development jobs do require prior framework experience.

Answer 2

It depends on what you want. If you want a job, you should also look at demand vs supply. for example rails & android being new, the ratio is good to get a job. I had read some statistics where they say

1. For every java opening there are atleast 623 resumes

2. For even .NET opening there are atleast 567 resumes

3. For every rails opening there are atleast 11 resumes.

You can see rails is a better option to learn too in that case. Again this is much of a personal preference & what opportunity is knocking at your door right now with a trade off with what you want to learn.

Answer 3

At some point, writing all your PHP by hand will become difficult to maintain. So you should be comfortable with using libraries in Object form. This will save you 100s or 1000s of hour from re-inventing a wheel on how to do common operations you'll run into such as Form Validation, File Uploading, Database Saving, and the like.

A framework is somewhat a collection of libraries to do all these tasks for you. However, some frameworks restrict you and without properly understanding OOP your skills may be limited by relying totally on a framework.

My suggestion is to learn some OOP and practice writing a few libraries if you don't understand that yet.