Do we really need another
PHP Framework?

About Me

Professionally developing software since 2003

Focus on web, mobile and game development

Into the gaming industry since 2008

Former Lead developer Web Games @ Gameforge

Now gun for hire: Eckert Internet Services

Yii?

Yii is an acronym for Yes it is!, the answer to the most likely asked questions regarding a framework:

Pretty self-confident, hm?

Is it fast?

Is it secure?

Is it professional?

Is it right for my next project?

Yiiwhat?

Started in 2008 by former PRADO developer Qianq Xue

Team of 7 core developers

No release for some months but active maintenance on Github

Facebook page & Google Group

Small but professional community

Features at a glance

RAD Widgets (View helpers, ListView, GridView)

AR, DAO, Query Builder, Database Migration

Massive Extensibility (DI, Behaviours, Events, Hooks, Modules ) => Useful Extensions!

Nice Routing

Good security mechanisms

Scaffolding and Console Applications

lean, clean, reusable code

RAD Widgets

Easy menu

GridView of (model)data

Configurable in detail, or use as is!

RAD Widgets II

Instead of stand-alone widgets there are also widgets that work on your HTML

Active Record

Work with your database in an object oriented fashion

Active Record II

Yii's AR is quite sophisticated!

Active Record Relations

Relations are easy-peasy

Active Record Scopes

Define WYG (What you get)

Active Record Behaviors

Define how it acts!

So Active Record is the holy grail!

Active Record is convenient

BUT: DO NOT use AR on data driven tables (like logs or tables where the throughput is high!)

Every row is reflected as an object

Think!

If the usecase doesn't favour AR, use DAO!

Power Responsibility

Data Access Objects

Use it if you need lots of datasets at once.

Conclusion AR vs. DAO

AR is convenient to use

Most widgets support AR (but also DAO in some ways)

Code generation through Gii

If you have tables where lots of records are accessed at once, use DAO!

Don't stop to think because it's easy to work with!

Hooks

Every CComponent (almost everything in Yii) calls hooks before/after specified actions:beforeValidate/afterValidate

beforeSave/afterSave

beforeDelete/afterDelete

beforeFind/afterFind

beforeRender/afterRender

uncomplete list, also fired as events.

Need to react? Just hook in!

Again: Think!

Hooks and Events can trigger many actions without caring about them (Observer Pattern). So react on them wisely!e.g. User registers:Action to send mail to user is triggered

Action to send mail to admin is triggered

Creating a user profile

Generating a pdf invoice is triggered

...

Security - XSS

Just use the proper Widgets and methods:

Security - XSRF

Activate XSRF token

Use POST requests for important actions
(like deleting, adding etc.)

That's all you need to do!

Extensions / Modules

Modules are self-contained MVCs and nestable

Can interact with core application. Nice for administrative frontend, JSON webservice etc.

Lots of useful extensions already available

Console Applications

Most likely: Cronjobs

Friendly console:

Implement in a MVC like fashion

Embedded Console Applications

Generate message files from application (l8n)

Generate new app skeleton

Migrate database command

and some shell commands (code gen.)

And more...

Easy Internationalization / Localisation

ACL / RBAC (lots of options and possibilities)

Caching on certain levels

PHP-Unit / Selenium Support

Almost ALL Core Components are replacable by DI (Request, Session, Cookie, )
=> maximum flexibility

Do we really need another
PHP Framework?

YES!

Questions?

? ? ? ?

Thank you!

@nerdlibfront

https://www.xing.com/profile/Joachim_Eckert

www.eisit.de

eckert@eisit.de