I've been developing an open source MVC framework in PHP and it's going OK. However, I wanted to find out about any other frameworks around the place that do a similar thing. I want to see how other people approach this design pattern.
Here are my main aims: 1) standardise development patterns so it is easier to understand other people's code 2) standardise repository/library building so that applications scale features (modules) in an organised manner. 3) provide a central point of configuration to make porting and deploying applications to different environments less painful. 4) provide a standardised way of abstracting interface design from content generation. 5) provide a consistent approach to exception handling 6) provide a consistent approach to content delivery and make it easier to solve cross-platform user agent issues. 7) KISS (keep it simple stupid) and corresponding Objectives: 1a) enforce a 100% OO approach to application design using inheritence (implemented object factories). The modularisation of an application should be restricted to class definitions. So the only include() statements should be at the top of a class definition which includes other classes. 1b) promote the usage of PHPdoc and documentation in general 2) Establish a convention for the naming and storage of packages and class definitions so that someone can unzip a package into the tree and use it out-of-the-box (through the URL) 3) use one script as a single point of access which can control configuration settings. Instead of every script needing o include a particular configuration file, one file (with the configuration) will invoke and pass-through every script (class definition). 4) the MVC should assume output is in XML (content centric) and provide standard mechanisms for passing it on to display processors (such as XSLT processors). shuch mechanisms will include conventions for declaring and locating templates (XSL files). 5) utilise the custom error handling capabilities of PHP to raise and handle exceptions in an organised way. 6) <see point 4>. Also, the controller should help the developer make decisions on how to process the output based on user agents or other conditions. 7) the only thing a backend developer need worry about is returning XML output from her/his "external" method. The only thing a GUI developer need worry about is where to put their XSL templates. At the moment, I'm not considdering performance (shock, horror). Of utmost importance is make the life of a developer much easier in both short and long-term (when the codebase gets really big). Once the model has stabilised, I can tweak it without compromising the useablity for developers. The model may include provisions for a distributed implementation. It already has provisions for content caching (XML) and may be extended to include output caching (post XSLT). As it happens, the controller is actually written procedurally for reasons I won't go into at this point (this may change). Other offerings: I have checked out fusebox (FB) (which was initially designed for ColdFusion (CF) but is also available in PHP). It was interesting to see that FB was very similar, in the way methods (or "fuse actions") are called, to how I do it. However, I'm not a big fan of FB for PHP since I like to use an OO methodology. FB is good for CF though. http://www.fusebox.org/ And I am about to check out Krysalis which looks to be quite comprehensive. http://www.interakt.ro/products/Krysalis/index.php Depending on my progress, I will be posting something on my website under the "projects" heading. here's a nice gentle introduction to MVC http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2412/new1020217692284/index.html Once again, if anyone can point me to other existing examples, please point :) Credit where credit is due: I should mention that one of the things that inspired me in the first place was http://dcl.sourceforge.net/docs/developers/dcl_developer.html This is a very cool tool. I type of CRM I guess. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
