Modern PHP

Chapter 3. Standards

There is a mind-boggling number of PHP components and frameworks. There are macro frameworks like Symfony and Laravel. There are micro frameworks like Silex and Slim. And there are legacy frameworks like CodeIgniter that were built long before modern PHP components existed. The modern PHP ecosystem is a veritable melting pot of code that helps us developers build amazing applications.

Unfortunately, older PHP frameworks were developed in isolation and do not share code with other PHP frameworks. If your project uses one of these older PHP frameworks, you’re stuck with the framework and must live inside the framework’s ecosystem. This centralized environment is OK if you are happy with the framework’s tools. However, what if you use the CodeIgniter framework but want to cherry-pick a helper library from the Symfony framework? You’re probably out of luck unless you write a one-off adapter specifically for your project.

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

Cool Hand Luke

Do you see the problem? Frameworks created in isolation were not designed to communicate with other frameworks. This is extremely inefficient, both for developers (creativity is limited by framework choice) and for frameworks themselves (they re-invent code that already exists elsewhere). I have good news, though. The PHP community has evolved from a centralized framework model to a distributed ecosystem of efficient, interoperable, and specialized components.

PHP-FIG to the Rescue ...