Chapter 1. Introducing Zend Framework
This chapter covers
- Why you should use Zend Framework
- What Zend Framework can do
- The philosophy behind Zend Framework
PHP has been used to develop dynamic websites for over 10 years. Initially, all PHP websites were written as PHP code interspersed within HTML on the same page. This worked very well, as there is immediate feedback, and for simple scripts this was what was needed. PHP grew in popularity through versions 3 and 4, so it was inevitable that larger and larger applications would be written in PHP. It quickly became obvious that intermixing PHP code and HTML was not a long-term solution for large websites.
The problems are obvious in hindsight: maintainability and extensibility. While PHP intermixed with HTML allows for extremely rapid results, it is hard to continue to update the website in the longer term. One of the really cool features of publishing on the web is that it is dynamic, with content and site layouts changing. Large websites change all the time, and the look and feel of most sites is updated regularly, as the needs of the users (and advertisers!) change. Something had to be done.