tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2010:/articles/using-the-right-tool-for-the-job/comments Mephisto Drax 2009-07-18T11:07:39Z Katz tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2009-04-08:1650:1908 2009-07-18T11:07:39Z 2009-07-18T11:07:39Z I am trying to explore other options apart from Ruby on Rails and I'm looking at Django as another possibly good option for other projects I might have. I have a background in PHP and have used CodeIgniter and Drupal (not a framework but it's module approach is good) in the past. I think pitfall of companies is that they choose the option which seems to be a solution because it's done like "Ubercart" which is a shopping cart module. They believe it can be easily tweaked and modified for all e-commerce projects which is wrong. Kirk Bushell tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2009-04-08:1650:1808 2009-05-26T06:03:13Z 2009-05-26T06:03:13Z @ Nate - first and foremost thanks for your post and feedback, greatly appreciated. You have however, made a few assumptions. You make excellent points but I never said I hated frameworks - I use them all the time. My main qualm is with developers who learn a single framework, then think it's the answer for all their development needs, especially if they haven't touched any others - this is ignorance at it's finest (of them, not you :P) Also, I believe there are some instances where using a pre-built framework isn't going to serve your needs. If you're going to be having a fairly complex structure for your data, and it's related actions with other bits of data, using an ActiveRecord pattern may not be the best (or only) answer. Nate Klaiber tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2009-04-08:1650:1802 2009-05-22T13:23:09Z 2009-05-22T13:23:09Z I am all about using the right tool for the job, but I would beg to say you don't understand all options available to you within the frameworks. You have so many options (as you would without the framework). Is your site comprised of mostly static pages? Let them be static and have something like nginx (or other quick response HTTP server) serve them up without ever having to load up the framework at all. Not that caching is a solution, but you could potentially do the same with dynamic pages, managing your cache expiration accordingly so things can still get loaded up quickly. It's a very sweeping statement to say that by using a Framework you are throwing performance down the drain - there are so many available tools to manage whatever aspect you are looking to improve. I don't mean to come off as condescending, but this just feels like half-assed statements without understanding your options. It's like you want to dis-credit the frameworks because you don't like them (or feel afraid of them). I think most programmers go through this, where they battle against the idea of a framework simply because 'heck, I could write that myself'. Then they realize the pattern they develop for themselves (whether it a procedural PHP library of often used functions, or a collection of PHP objects that serve different purposes like Email, Validation, Routing, Parsing, etc). When you get past that, and understand the frameworks and languages behind them, then you realize how they can make you more efficient and powerful as a programmer. I've used CakePHP, CodeIgniter, and now Rails full time. I tried to go back and use CakePHP for a recent client project and then realized how backwards their MVC is....it's more of a VC. At that point, I figured out what I needed to do to patch that brokenness. It didn't 'get in my way' necessarily, it just didn't offer what I felt it should - so I added it. Nick tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2009-04-08:1650:1666 2009-04-15T01:48:35Z 2009-04-15T01:48:35Z Lazy coders feed cpu, hdd and ram companies pockets :) It's win win! hehe Alex Pooley tag:www.kirkbushell.com,2009-04-08:1650:1651 2009-04-08T01:39:55Z 2009-04-08T01:39:55Z These are good points. Sometimes I use a framework for seemingly simple work because I know from experience that simple things get complex quickly. From the outside it may not look like I know what I'm doing, but I really do. Honest :)