My how the lowly have risen, and then fallen again. As I set out on yet another “science project” to develope the latest killer application I was bound and determined to make use of a commercial framework. The idea was to take advantage of what others had built so I could be more productive. To steal a pun, I wanted to stand on the shoulders of giants.
It turns out I was standing on the shoulders of hedge hogs. After a lack luster search I chose the Zend Framework because its components could be leveraged without having to use every aspect of the framework. This was good and so far it has worked as advertised. The big problem I have is the documentation. I am an avid PHP developer (it’s free, easy, and did I mention it was free?). As an avid PHP developer I use the www.php.net documentation extensively. Even though the documentation is sometimes lacking on its own (ok, it’s almost always lacking on its own) the user community comments go a long way to providing insight and code examples.
By comparison, the Zend Framework Programmers Reference Guide could be best described as useless. In every case that I have tried so far the guide has provided a “sample” of what can be done with the framework. Unfortunately for me every “sample” I have found was NOT what I wanted to do with the framework. In fact, I have only managed to sucessfully use the forms validation code so far. Every other attempt to use Zend Framework code has ended in frustration.
Now I will be the first to admit the problem could be me. I have always had trouble with code frameworks that I didn’t write. Having said that, I still think the documentation leaves A LOT to be desired. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the effort that open source developers put forth to build code frameworks. It’s just that if you go through all that effort to make the framework then please don’t skimp on the documentation. The framework could be awesome (and Zend Framework may well be awesome), but if you don’t know how to take advantage of all the power in the framework then it’s useless to the individual developer.
Ok, I’ve said my peace. Now it’s back to trying to figure out how to leverage the framework on my own. See ya!
