What do you think of PHP frameworks in general?

I’ve recently worked on a client’s site which was built (by another guy) using the Laravel framework. His site is very simple and imo it could’ve been built with way less code. I just don’t understand why some devs love using these frameworks when the job could be done in a much simpler way.

I feel that these frameworks are just making things more complex instead of simpler. My client’s site takes up 150mb+ of space (thousands of files) and that’s ridiculous considering the site only has 5 pages and 3 forms and the responses are sent straight to the webmaster’s email.

What do you think?

I guess there are frameworks and there are frameworks. I don’t know anything about lavreal framework but I like them for the following reasons:

  1. If I know the framework, and if its MVC, I know roughlt what many files do what and I feel I have a head start in understanding someone elses code written in it.

  2. The framework writer has generally hardened the framework against common web vulnerabilities. As I am not an expert in comon php attack vectors I feel safer using one.

  3. They may have ready made plugins which might be useful.

In a way I guess its a bit like the person who wants a single page website using a wordpress install. Its way more files than they need but it sure is easier to update than downloading an html file to your computer, editing it with an html editor and uploading it again.

I just made a simple soccer team registration app. About 5 pages, two forms, database to store the team information, a paypal link and the ability for the administrator to extract a spreadsheet, some mailing stuff.

I used Symfony 2. Windows says the complete app is 25 mb (43 on the disk whatever that means), 6964 files, 1694 folders. Horrible! Bloated! I should be shot.

But wait. There is only two spots where I had to add code or tweak.

The app directory is124KB with 20 files most of of which are standard configuration files which didn’t require modifying.

The src directory is 55KB, 30 files. That is where the heart of the application lives.

About 20 files for the real work.

Does it really matter that the app sits on top of thousands of files? Not to me. A simple git pull followed by a composer install and off you go. And since I am somewhat familiar with Symfony,Doctrine and phpoffice(spreadsheet export) it didn’t take long at all to setup and it’s easy to maintain. Learning how to make a paypal button was the time consuming portion.

My question is: What did the client say when you told him you could rewrite the application from scratch free up some disk space? Was he willing to pay for it?