Hi
Assuming that I’m building a large web application, do I really need the Zend framework or can I build large applications without it? :fangel:
You can build a large application however you want, no specific framework is a requirement for that. The advantage to using a framework is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you need an Access Control List, you COULD spend the time building your own, or use Zend_ACL. If you need to access the database a lot, instead of writing a bunch of your own functions Zend_DB’s got you covered. That said, running a framework does somewhat limit your flexibility. Some files need to be in specific places, you need to familiarize yourself with the frameworks naming conventions and so forth. There’s definitely a learning curve to this sort of thing. but you only have to learn it once and it can save you time an all your projects large enough to warrant it.
Hey, as the above posted said, there is no exclusive need to use a frame work. And no real reason to use zend over symphony. I also though if you were wondering about frameworks you might find this interesting:
http://terrychay.com/article/learning-frameworks.shtml Terry Chay is pretty well respected around the PHP community works for wordpress in a sense and he pretty often has some good points.
What I take away from him is
- Don’t let the framework decide the project
- Frameworks have so much they don’t do what you need them to, a specialized framework for what you want accomplished will be faster and more secure than a general framework. This is pretty much, selecting the right tool for the right job.
depends on what you mean by “large”. I find it hard to survive without a framework nowadays. Imaging writting your own twitter, pagination, authentication, logging, facebook, email, web service, search … classes.
At its heart a framework is a plan. To do a large application you will need a plan. Either you will use a general purpose framework or end up writing one customized for that task.
Not all frameworks are created equal though. Some do more work than others for you, and some are more loosely coupled than others (though be wary of any framework so strongly coupled its components are impossible to pull from each other - this makes it impossible to test). Some are better organized, some are general purpose while others are more specific. Look around - even if you don’t use a framework you may find some of its ideas and principles useful.
Thank you all.
Is it possible to write my own Framework? and What do I need for that? DO I need to learn C++ for example? 
I’m writing my fourth. I rather enjoy it though and understand why most people find it a distasteful experience. Aside from that I’m still of the opinion that none of the existing ones are especially good - that’s why none of them have much traction other than Zend - and I think that’s due to marketing more than the quality of the framework. (Seriously - there is no leader in PHP for the framework race - where Ruby has Rails, Python has Django, etc). I’ve worked with it as an experiment and came away with the impression that its not so much a framework as a library of tools. PHP already has those - the PECL library.
I agree with you. 
A question has raised in my mind, what if Zend goes out of business, will this be the end of PHP?