[div]

Hi
I was doing a study of PHP frameworks but there are so many frameworks that study of all was not possible. I saw a poll at http://completeopensource.blogspot.com

What I saw on poll voting pattern was surprising. I considered Yii in top 5 of my choice but people have voted Yii at 6th position (see attached image- snap shot of poll).

There may be two conclusions of this:
1) Either Yii is not the best framework or not among top 5
2) Its community is not so active.

Second point looks more realistic because I didn't see good number of members of Yii group on linkedin. Same is the case on facebook too. Even if there are Yii groups and very few members, I saw there was no post in discussionhttp://www.yiiframework.com/forum/uploads/monthly_09_2009/post-2321-12519226730352_thumb.png forum on those groups. Similarly I tried looking at google groups but same condition is there too.

While comparing frameworks or any open source tool, product or software, active community is considered very seriously. If this is the situation with Yii than why one should not consider it out of top 5?

Now my question is: Who is responsible for this situation? We, the community members.

See this interesting post: http://completeopensource.blogspot.com/2009/08/php-frameworks-comparison-part-1.html

Attached File(s)

•  bestphpframework.PNG (12.87K)
  Number of downloads: 40

[qiang]

The poll really doesn't tell the truth because it is significantly affected by its visibility and exposure to general public. If the poll happens to be mentioned in a framework forum, then it is highly likely that framework would get many votes. Using this poll result, can you conclude doophp is more popular or better than yii?

A more meaningful thing to do is to compare in detail every major aspect that a framework should have. This will give people more knowledge rather than blind trust based on some biased statistics.

[imehesz]

and here we go again ...

You can't really compare frameworks without some/complete knowledge OF the frameworks themselves.

Of course people (hopefully) like what they use and will try to support it as much as possible. I used CakePHP and ZendF for about a year (each) so I have a pretty good idea what I do or don't like about those apps.

If you asked me 2.5 years ago I'd have said, yes CAKE is the best, of course. If you asked me a year ago I'd have said, there is no better framework than ZendF ... and now Yii

And another thing, Cake's been around for a long time and ZF is supported by the big ZEND!!! Of course more people heard about them. As far as I see Yii will reach and pass them, because Yes, it is - that good

that's my 2cent

--iM

[whoopass]

I think this is a very challenging topic in the regards that it's hard to compare things that were designed and operated in different eras. Putting aside the frameworks for a sec, lets think of it in terms of say vehicles.

How can you compare a vehicle that's released say a year ago, to one that was released 5 years ago? The features would be different and the newer car would most certainly have everything that the older one did and more. This makes the newer car the improved one but not necessarily the better one.

Now you could compare how well the cars sold within the first x months or w/e and that's a good way to determine popularity however different cars have different purposes and as such, at different times different ones will be more popular. 20 years ago, trucks, sports cars, all those fancy purpose cars were what people bought. 10 years ago, more and more people went with vans and cars for storage and passengers and economy. Now you see a lot of people going for fuel efficiency, so when demands change, obviously what becomes popular will also change.

Now going back to frameworks, to compare how Yii holds up with other frameworks is hard to say, especially with communities because they've had x amount of years to build theirs and we're still building ours. But if you were to take a look at how well documentation, how well code structures were and how well the features applied to the demand within the first year of their running and compared it to Yii well now you have something a little more valid to compare. It's still not perfect because a lot of things were perfected in between the time that they ran and Yii started. But those little ways of comparing are how you'll get accurate results.

If you look to compare final products as Qiang said, then you'll see Yii is on top because as a whole, it is a very effective and useful framework, among the best if not the best.

When I see these sorts of topics, I remember that everything is just someones opinion and personal choice. I mean when I checked into Yii what settled the score was it's goals and implementation of security. I'm a student in a network security program (computer hacker sort of deal) so that information appealed to me and not just that it was something I was looking for in my coding practises. So you have to remember that whole key on demand, different frameworks are good for different purposes that's why there are so many. Yii has a lot more to it than security, but when compared to the rest it stood out.

And that's how you have to evaluate the frameworks, what they offer, and how they stand out compared to that.

[Q-efx]

"Comparing" things, in just a vote. Without the Question, why and how. Is an emotional vote. What do you think when people just have to vote for MP3 player? Most will vote IPOD.

They dont care, if there better, cheaper or with more features out there. Or even look better.

So, the most "emotional" and well known product will win. Thats sad, cuase people dont use there brain. Or search for new things. But this is how people "work"

If you wants more people, they have to create emotions. But this will reduce the "overall" product quality.

See apple vs windows.

Apples OS is NOT better. In my 20 years of PC experience I could tell you most of the time crashes are produced by programs. Not by the OS. But on apple there are far less programs. And they are coded in years for it. Sure they run smother. If they would have all applications choices of windows. They would get the same problems, soon or later

Imagine there would be thousands of different fuels for your car. Soon or later you will put a wrong fuel in it!

[pestaa]

I interpreted this thread as how to increase Yii's visibility.

The previously mentioned huge communities (Google Groups, Facebook, LinkedIn) are all great options, but the best decision would be to centralize all discussions into one straightforward place -- the project site itself.

There are numerous attempts to provide sufficient support for users of Zend Framework (for example), and none of them (nor even the mailing list) work as great as this forum does.

Once the core developers gather enough idea (based on dozens of feature requests and usage patterns), 1.1 will be released, which will simply... rule the world!

Popularity does not mean activity. It does not mean reliability. It does not mean the right fuel you might want to put in your car.