How do JavaScript frameworks like Node.js, Backbone, Meteor make money?

“One of the oldest languages, i.e., JavaScript is vastly popular for its magnificent speed and efficiency. No matter in which language a website is being developed, JavaScript is always there to make the web application not only to run faster but also look stunning and attractive. The biggest advantage of JavaScript is its event driven application development. Events make the web application not only look promising, but also impart better user experience. Again the optimized core of JavaScript makes the event run flawlessly on the browser leaving the user astonished. Hence JavaScript has been considered as a front-end technology to impart accurate and most prominent user experience on the browser; but recently industry has revealed its true potential as a full-fledged programming language that can control both client side as well as server side programming. With the introduction of JavaScript frameworks a web developer can craft outstanding web application without any need of backend programming languages like C#, PHP or Java etc.”

MVC can make the development process much systematic that means Quick process: MVC stands for the model view controller and this is on the highest buzz in the current market state of affairs. Almost all leading web frameworks are framed with this Architecture because of its best in industry performance, efficiency and potential. In fact, MVC is the most trusted and tested Architecture of the industry that enables web developers in creating highly scalable and coherent web solutions. JavaScript frameworks like BackboneJS, AngularJS, NodeJS and others also follow this Architecture to impact the most accurate solution to the application requirements. With MVC, the front-end section, i.e., the view remains isolated from the backend database, i.e., model through a controller. Any change made by the controller can be reflected on the entire application without any need for modification at every place. As a result, this helps in creating the application in an object oriented approach. With frameworks like BackboneJS, Angular JS and NodeJS etc., highly scalable web solutions can be developed in a systematic manner to avoid every possible conflict while handling resources.

Well maintained and well testable application can be achieved with JS frameworks: Industry has realized the importance of functionality along with performance, look and feel and post production support for any project. As a result all new era web frameworks are built to provide utmost importance to the performance and user experience for any web solution and so the case for JavaScript frameworks. Backbones, AngularJS and NodeJS etc. give maximum priority to the performance of any application being developed by the JavaScript developer. These frameworks encourage skilled JavaScript developers to create highly maintainable codes for any application. On the other hand, they also ensure that the quality of the application is of enterprise standard. Again the documentation of these frameworks helps in achieving the best in class user experience for any web application. Proper indentation, use of proper key words and functions are helping an application program not only look professional, but also helps in creating well maintained and highly stable code through these JavaScript MVC frameworks and hence creating an economic situation for the project.

Cost of development will reduce drastically: With the above features, these JavaScript frameworks help in creating enterprise standard web solutions in a systematic approach that fortunately lessens the time and effort of the web developer. Consequently the productivity and effectiveness of the application increase tremendously and hence the cost of production decreases. In fact, experts strongly believe that any project development done in a pre-approved approach makes an application not only work smoothly but also helps in making it stable enough to accommodate with different circumstances of the industry. Again, these frameworks avoid any necessity of backend programmers from the application development process and that eliminates the cost incurred by backend programmers and hence making the cost of development so economic.

Future ready cross platform and responsive app development can be possible: It has been revealed that maximum traffic for any website is now-a-days coming from devices like smart phones and tablets. Due to the portability features of smart phones and tablets, it is gaining popularity as a computer device among the user. Moreover, mobile networks that offer anywhere-internet help the user in browsing internet from these small devices. As a result the demands of smart apps and web apps have increased unexpectedly in the recent period. Fortunately, all JavaScript frameworks like BackboneJS, Meteor and NodeJS are highly efficient in creating enterprise standard smart apps for different platforms like Android, iOS and windows, etc. With these frameworks we can easily develop highly touch sensitive and efficient smart phone apps that too with the tremendous speed of JavaScript. So we can say these frameworks are highly focused upon the ever changing demands of the industry and helps in creating outstanding apps for the industry and this makes them to run on the success path of the future.

With NodeJS, server side communication can be handled in an efficient manner: There was a time, when JavaScript was adopted only in frontend programming, but with NodeJS industry witnessed the true potential of JavaScript not only as a backend programming language but also as a server side scripting technology. Industry used to implement Apache Tomcat server for the communication with the database with threading technology; but with NodeJS there is no need of implementation of an inefficient threading mechanism to handle multiple concurrent requests to the server. Instead of that they are using highly modern and efficient asynchronous request handling technology to avoid deadlocks and resource block issues. Most importantly, all these happen with the tremendous potential of JavaScript alone. As a result the cost of development for any large scale, highly event driven enterprise standard web application can be decreased spontaneously.

Finally, open source modules and plug-ins can make the development process even more economic: Along with the benefit of these JavaScript frameworks, we can’t ignore the importance of the open source JavaScript modules and plug-ins that are available over the web to help the developers in creating reliable yet quick web solutions over and above the framework. Especially availability of free and open source jQuery plug-ins can make a significant change in the final budget of your web project without compromising on the quality of your application. In fact, they improve the user experience and usability of any web application to a large extent without creating any considerable financial burden over the client.

Mindfire’s JavaScript development team has rich experience in core JavaScript programming as well as various JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries e.g. Node.JS, Backbone.JS, KnockOut.JS, Angular.JS, EXT.JS and creation of rapid web application development solutions. Mindfire Solutions provides a range of services in Responsive Websites and Web Application Development with the support of our deep web application development expertise and multiple years of RIA application development experience.

Can we do everything with Scala that we can do with Java?

Java as an object-oriented, class-based programming language enables application developers to efficiently ‘write once, run everywhere’ (compiled Java code) for client-server web apps. Scala, on the other hand, gets full support for functional programming and is often considered competitive for building general software applications. While both are meticulously designed as multi-paradigm, general purpose programming languages, developers often speculate if Scala can practically do everything that Java does, or if Scala functions as greatly as Java?

Java is easy to learn but Scala is easy to code: This is the most important consideration that we must think for. Java is undoubtedly the simplest language of the industry. Any programmer having slightest idea on C or C++ can easily write Java code without much research; but what makes it terrific in some scenarios? That is the code length! Though Java Syntax is simple; but it demands more codes from the Java developer to write a block or task. This is the biggest drawback of Java and now, if we are going to compare it with Scala then the primary concern is this (besides other features of course). On the contrary, Scala is never so easy to start with; but, once you learn it, you can do whatever you need in less time and most importantly with very less lines of code. Scala is little difficult to learn especially its Syntax is not that much familiar as of Java; but they are highly optimized and compressed so that the Scala developer can get benefited from them. So, the initial investment of time for learning Scala is worth every penny when we consider its future aspects. Again, there is no doubt that Scala comes integrated with an extremely strong static type system, but they both embed different syntaxes (although you may see almost identical bytecodes (when compiled) generated by these two languages). However, let’s have a deeper insight into what makes them similar or dissimilar, if at all.

1. Transporting to Scala from Java has its benefits in several ways; most importantly the former’s embedded compiler magic. The feature basically allows web developers to keep their code simple and neat. As a programming language, Scala makes it really easy for developers to model their things in OO (Object Oriented), even if they are not relying on its functional programming structure. In Scala, everything is method and that eliminates unnecessary mess from an application making it not only clean but also well maintainable.

2. An edge that Scala developers often have over Java developers is its integrated high order functionality – which basically empowers Scala as a programming language, and provides users with powerful tools to extricate their issues in the language. Scala never demand more coding from the developer; in fact, it desperately encourages Scala developers to write less code for any task. On the contrary, Java has a not so good reputation in the industry as a language that demands more codes, more efforts and more time from experienced Java developers. The programming language Scala also provides its users with a strong type inference, anonymous function literals, variance annotation, and implicit definition and conversion.

3. Without two thoughts, users can gain as many functional programming benefits from Scala as from Java. However, Scala renders high immutability – which actually helps with trimming down the bugs and the complexities of concurrency. It is also considered as a powerful language to boost your productivity. Its inbuilt mechanism plays an important role in code optimization, code refactoring and performance boost for the application which is extremely helpful for everyone. There are collection methods that largely diminish boilerplate, powerful collections framework, and an annotation that can easily write meaningful equals.

4. Both Scala and Java use same package and feature the same compilation models. However, it is Scala’s type system that makes it more useful as a programming language than Java. Using Scala, developers can seamlessly abstract over type constructors, and even enable a range of class solutions that generally look not feasible in Java. The object-oriented language even helps lessen the incidences of duplication, undoubtedly one of the most useful features of Scala.

5. Scala acts more like a blueprint language, for it takes care of almost everything about an app development. It’s more like, you simply design your application, and the embedded magic compiler will take care of all other responsibilities and get the job done for you. At the same time, it is almost as powerful as Clojure. But, it is definitely more comfortable to read for users who have a background more into Java, C, and C++.

6. Although Java 8 incorporates a number of approaches that are analogous to the approaches incorporated by Scala, the latter sticks strong due to its ‘write less, do more’ approach. The fact that Scala is a functional programming language makes it any day more of a favorable choice for the developers to write all steps they need in order to accomplish their objectives. It also lends support to monads – often referred as programmable semicolons, enabling developers to construct pipelines that help process data in steps (in which each action is adorned by additional processing rules rendered by the monad).

7. And of course, the most important feature ‘pattern matching’ makes Scala a supreme choice amongst programmers. The language also offers interoperability with NoSQL, the REPL, components that solve a lot of limitations of Java’s object model, infix syntax -> English-looking DSLs, and operator overloading.

Our Final Verdict:

There are many reasons as to why you should consider switching to Scala if you are a Java developer. Scala provides a lot of advantages over Java, and has undoubtedly been gaining more popularity. But we cannot overlook the flaws that come with Scala at the same time, with the state of which; SBT and super slow compilation are the main issues.

However, if you ask us ‘can we do everything with Scala that we can do with Java’, our answer would be ‘yes, you can & probably a lot more.’

And if you only want to build a project that combines the best of both Java and Scala, you can do by developing a project in Eclipse – where some Scala methods use Java methods, and some Java methods use Scala methods. And yes, don’t forget to use Maven to take care of your project in Eclipse.

If you are looking forward to build applications using Java or Scala, it will be in your best interests to hire offshore software development services of Mindfire Solutions that has been in the business for the last 16 years. Apart from that, it has a formidable reputation in building user-friendly applications in both Java as well as Scala.

Node.js: What’s so great about npm?

The very intrinsic fact that Node.js helps saves space, and embeds ease of use is making it quite a popular choice as package manager these days. Amidst a plethora of other package managers that provide complicated installation, npm stands distinct for its unique local package installation. The tool has simplifies a lot of things for developers by providing them with a choice to make between global and local installation.

However, listed below are some remarkable attributes of Node.js that have surfaced of late, both for developers who are pushing their package managers to npm, and experienced JavaScript developers who are using package managers off Node.js.

 It is a default package manager, but it is an open source project with Artistic License. The package basically allows users to seamlessly install and manage the tools that come with Node. Developers, with node.js, can efficiently manage dependencies and install packages – locally or globally.

 Web developers may benefit largely from node.js’s prowess to build scripts, and to extricate most complexity that comes with RubyGems. The powerful tool provides command line utility for developers to install Node.js packages, and even offers dependency management and version management of Node.js packages.

 Node Package Manager, concurrently, is integrated with the functionality of online repositories. By default, the package manager installs any dependency in the local mode. The tool eliminates fragmentation and strong network effect at the same time. Node.js simplifies publishing, and is greatly known for enhancing the experience of standard package managers.

 Apart from its seamless capability to get installed automatically, the package manager for JavaScript also enables web developers to install Node.js apps (more importantly, the apps that are available on the Node Package Manager registry). It provides a non-blocking I/O API – which further helps optimize an app’s productivity and scalability.

 It is a pre-installed manager for Node.js that depends on Google V8 JavaScript engine for code implementation, and enables apps to function as a web server devoid of any software like IIS or Apache HTTP Server. The tool is specifically designed to handle asynchronous I/O, and can capably handle a horde of web development or network development issues.

 The Event Loop further lets users manage a thread pool and carry out their tasks effortlessly (once node.js applications have passed asynchronous tasks to the event loop). And since npm has JavaScript as part of its foundation, the tool helps trim down the limitations as well as the boundaries between both front- and back-end development.

 Another great attribute of Node Package Manager is its flourishing open source community, which has been helping developers through several feature-rich modules intended for Node.js applications. One of the most prominent modules is considered to be Socket.io – which helps users direct and supervise constant connections between a client and a server. This basically allows the server to seamlessly drive real-time updates to clients.

 In terms of its business benefits, Node.js makes it easier for web developers to explore their web possibilities, ensuring the speed of delivery and of course the ability to iterate. The package manager makes everything extremely speedy in common tasks in web applications. Whether it is writing to a particular file system or reading or writing to the database, the tool simply refuses to slow down.

 Node.js unveils extreme simplicity and ease for real time web applications. Node.js enables web developers to facilely develop comet-driven real time web apps. It can perform tremendously amazing for multi-user real time apps – such as chat apps and games. It even helps shun the overhead of HTTP for web development.

 Besides being impressively convenient and consistent, Node.js provides users with the possibility of effective tooling. It lets developers manage dependency in a smooth manner, and has a strong community – which is simply growing stronger and more organized day by day. Over 60,000 modules are available out there for the web developers to rely on, and the number is simply increasing at a rapid pace.

 Node.js comes with corporate support. The package manager paves the way with support of a number of strong corporate houses, such as Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal and Walmart. This not just helps build more authenticity in Node.js as software, but also reveals a flow of the steady growth of the Node projects in future. And it is sponsored by Joyent.

 One of the most obvious benefits of Node.js is its embedded support for the JavaScript language. The manager provides developers with a JavaScript enabled web platform, which basically allows one to get hands on the wide functions or capabilities of Node.js. Since a huge number of developers rely on JavaScript to write code these days, Node.js simply acts as a great choice.

 Unlike most package managers that integrate complexities, Node.js comes handy as a proxy server. Users may now rely on node.js should they want to proxy different services with different-different response times. It even makes things easy with database queries.

 There is another great reason to employ node.js – which is enhanced organizational functionality. Organizations that use node.js can now easily trim down their page load times by 50 percent and trim down the number of servers required to host the app. Moreover, companies that rely on the node.js find it much simpler to retain their employees for longer, and of course make their users’ content. The tool is perfect for building fast, performance oriented and scalable network applications.

 It provides support for ubiquity and features a single codebase. In a nutshell, node.js renders an end-to-end JavaScript experience for smooth web development, reminding us of Bill Scott, Dir UX PayPal, “Why go to Facebook and do PHP when you can go to PayPal and do Node.js.”

Let’s not forget the thriving Node.js is hosting here. The tool has a huge deployment figure. Whether it’s Heroku or Platform-as-a-Service, major providers are largely supporting Node.js for its single command deployment capabilities.

There’s no doubt that npm has become a massive reliable choice for web developers these days. It’s one codebase, the ability to read and write streams to web sockets, the ability to read and write streams to HTTP, and ease for real-time web applications undoubtedly make Node.js a great package manager to use.

Mindfire has top notch JavaScript development team in India which has executed hundreds of projects in the domain. We build applications which best suit our customer’s budget and business interests.

PHP or ASP .NET – Which is Preferable?

“Every technology comes with some motive or vision that either creates or demolishes the future of the technology depending upon its real time execution! PHP and ASP .NET are two major web domain specific technologies of the industry, having some common and little uniqueness within them, which have made them to sustain in the industry till date. They have different objectives and visions from their inception and they stick to that to provide their customer base the best in the industry web solutions. When you are asked to choose one which is better for you; you need to be cautious enough because both have their advantages with respect to the requirements of the users; and they both fail to meet the expectations of the client in some specific cases; because they are not developed keeping those scenarios as a priority. So, let’s check out when and where PHP is preferable and when ASP .NET.”

PHP for low cost web development projects: The most important distinguishing feature about PHP and ASP .NET is the cost effectiveness. PHP is an open source technology where as ASP .NET is a proprietary product from Microsoft. Hence the software cost of PHP is too less than that of ASP .NET. In fact, due to its open source nature, PHP developers can get adequate rooms to modify the source code of the language as per their requirements and project demand. Again, the initial cost of PHP installation is negligible as compared to ASP.NET. Hence it is often preferred by small website development projects having limited budget for the development process. Again, the wages of PHP developers are much less as compared to ASP .NET developers due to its easy to learn approach that triggers fresher to kick start their career with PHP at very economic wages. Moreover, due to the open source nature of PHP, the industry is flooded with large numbers of open source PHP modules and plug-ins that help in decreasing the development time significantly. Considering all above situations it is clear that the development cost of any PHP application is less as compared to ASP .NET.

ASP .NET for large scale web applications: Though, ASP .NET is not preferred for low budget or static web projects, but it is having a tremendous demand for large scale web applications that need high performance, speed and better user experience. ASP .NET can handle any size of data driven web application in a hassle free manner without compromising on the quality of the application. The highly expert teams of Microsoft who have built this framework are extremely cautious for the optimization and high efficiency of this framework. The inbuilt libraries, methods and controls are extremely reliable and stable enough to deal with any type of complex situation. On the contrary, PHP as a language can’t afford such amenities for its developers.

Highly customizable and scalable application can be well handled with ASP .NET MVC: Due to the core MVC Architecture i.e., model view controller scheme, ASP .NET enables the ASP .NET developers to approach their programming style in an efficient and systematic manner. It keeps the view part of the application isolated from the model section by an intermediate controller. As a result, different components of the application are loosely coupled with each other and don’t interrupt any other’s functionality at all. This makes the application more scalable and customizable in order to provide enhanced user experience. Moreover, this encourages experienced ASP .NET developers to follow an Agile approach of web development process for utmost productivity from the application which is seriously restricted with PHP.

Programming effort can be decreased drastically with the integration of third party open source PHP modules and plug-ins: Undoubtedly programming becomes efficient within the ASP .NET IDE, but the coding effort of a PHP developer can be decreased tremendously due to availability of readymade modules and plug-ins to be integrated with any PHP web application. There are millions of open source PHP modules and plug-ins available in the industry that can be well integrated into PHP application with a little tweak by the developer. On the other hand, Microsoft strictly prohibits the integration of any unreliable third party modules or plug-ins into an ASP .NET application.

Quick web development can be achieved with the ASP .NET framework: Though, Microsoft never encourages relying on any third party modules and plug-ins but it offers more than that with its inbuilt mesmerizing features. ASP .NET is commonly known as “drag and drop” technology. That means it provides many web contents like form components that can be easily implemented into the application without any hassle. In fact, it enables the developer to take the advantage of its inbuilt validation methods to make the process much easier. As a framework, it also provides enough inbuilt packages, libraries and controls to craft highly optimized and efficient web applications on the fly.

High performance and reliable end product is must with ASP .NET: Since ASP .NET has inbuilt libraries containing large number of commonly used methods and classes, it makes the web development process much faster than that of PHP. To add this, those methods and libraries are developed by the expert team of Microsoft who are highly motivated in writing extremely optimized and stable codes for those components. During the development process when the ASP .NET developer calls those methods or classes, they needn’t to bother about the reliability and efficiency of those inbuilt stuffs. As a result, the end product developed with those components is dam reliable and is highly optimized.

Both support all modern amenities but in a different manner: Modern amenities like integration of JQuery, HTML5, CSS3 and other interactive plug-ins can be integrated with both PHP and ASP .NET applications but in different approaches. PHP enables PHP developers to integrate these amenities manually into their application where as ASP .NET provides many tools, supports and inbuilt packages to take the advantages of these amenities. Moreover ASP .NET also provides scope for crafting highly advanced and contemporary web applications with the support from its inbuilt emulators for different platforms like Android, Windows and iOS. As a result, an ASP .NET web developer can create smart apps for multiple platforms from within the ASP.NET environment.

Finally, it’s not fair to compare a language with a framework! As discussed above, we clearly visualize that ASP .NET outperforms PHP in most of the circumstances and it is obvious as well; because we were trying to compare an industry leading web framework with a web domain specific language. If you are looking for expert PHP development services and are interested to outsource your software development part, then look no further. Mindfire Solutions has been consistently developing industry specific applications for more than a decade now.

What are the pros and cons of using Yii Framework?

A framework can be massively productive for any developer who intends to build compliant, structured and efficient web apps in minimal time. In today’s time, as developers, we have a plethora of diverse frameworks regardless of the language we are programming in. The YII framework, however, is by far one of the most result-oriented, secure web frameworks to depend upon. It is designed for and by PHP to provide better developer experience through its features and better user experience through its end product.

Agreed, it may not be the one of the popular PHP frameworks for web development, it is surely one of the most promising open-source web app development frameworks. Below are some prominent advantages and disadvantages that come with YII, they are worth having a glance at.

Pros:

 The open source YII is undoubtedly the fastest framework for building Web2.0 applications (large scale). It renders a highly optimized performance, and can seamlessly be employed by developers for designing any kind of web applications. The generic web programming framework makes web development an enriched, intuitive experience (using PHP), and is perfectly suitable for large scale web applications – including e-commerce projects, forums, web portals, content management systems, RESTful services, and more.

 The MVC architecture of Yii helps the PHP web developers in crafting technically a smart web application. It helps in keeping the database server isolated from the view state of the application making it cleaner and effective. The Controller of the frameworks helps in managing different packages and libraries of the frameworks efficiently so that, the code pressure will decrease from the developer. It makes the whole system work as an object where a little tweak on the codebase will modify the entire system simultaneously. Any modification, addition, alters or deletion will be performed in a single line code and it will be visible throughout the application. At the same time, it provides a systematic approach to handle any application building process.

 Integrated with a Model-View-Controller structure, YII provides a horde of security features to ensure the highest degree of security to your application. Security plays the most important role in today’s world; because, more number of websites are dealing with sensitive informations like user data, their transaction history and also their personal credentials etc. So it must be given maximum priority in any web application. Fortunately, Yii comes with security features such as Cross-site Request Forgery Prevention, Cross-site Scripting Prevention and Cookie Attack Prevention. Since it is very significant for web developers to ensure thorough security for their app development, the framework comes embedded with authentication support, and authorization through hierarchical role-based access control. There is client side and server side validation as well, which developers can enable or disable as per their project requirements.

 The framework stands distinguished for its ability to function smoothly with third party codes. Users can seamlessly use code from their Zend or Pear framework in their Yes It Is (YII’s extended form) framework. This is like an ice on the cake; because this helps in increasing the potential of any web solution in an efficient yet professional manner. Imagine, a web application having the power of both Zend and Yii or of both Laravel and Yii!! They can definitely stand ahead among their peers and can contribute more to the PHP developer.

 Web developers also admire its clean, elegant caching support, and component-based architecture. For a developer, YII’s philosophy that code should be simple, and be written in the sophisticated manner works great. With caching, a smart web developer can build highly optimized web applications on the fly. In fact, considering a recent scenario where most of the web traffic are coming from smart devices; it becomes essential for every web developer to consider their website as a cross platform compatible one. Again, since their web app will render over smart phones, so they must be optimized enough so as to render similar user experience in all these memory intensive devices and platforms and fortunately Yii takes care of this wisely.

 It also offers ActiveRecord for relational as well as NoSQL databases, not to forget the query builders feature that YII provides. The tool further highlights its some of the most efficient caching features – letting users store cached data in different media. YII paves the way with an extremely solid yet seamless caching system, and lends support to XCache, memcache, ABC, and DB based page.

 YII framework is supremely easy to customize or check over, owing to its simple code structure. This enables developers to use varied widgets and extensions depending upon their web project requirements. At the same time, it is thoroughly object oriented – making it an ideal choice for anyone who is versed in object oriented web programming.

 The framework provides web developers with neat Ajax helpers, particularly with Grid view, and CRUD generator using Gii. Its Bootstrap extension support simplifies the whole process of creating responsive applications while integrated support for I18N allows users to have localized versions of their applications.

 Another significant advantage that YII has over most other programming frameworks is its large community support. The framework is supported and looked after by an extremely efficient team of professionals that consistently contribute to YII’s growth and development. The community pegs away at constantly integrating new features and advanced practices into the core framework – helping it evolve into a more sophisticated, performance oriented web application framework.

Cons:

 As a framework, YII does not come flooded with too many minuses. However, there is a portion of developers that steer clear of using YII as a framework for their web programming needs. To begin with, YII reveals kind of an over-reliance on static methods (a part of web developers community may not be comfortable with it).

 It is believed that YII demands extreme attention while one works with their application, for their code can quickly become bloated if proper care is not taken.

 The framework further has a somewhat steep learning curve, making it operose for new web developers to use or get started with.

Our word

Yes, YII framework does come with a few disadvantages, however, it is extremely powerful as a tool for developing a layered, structured web design. Some amazing attributes such as security, extensibility, theme organization, error handling, and integration with other frameworks make YII a great choice for web app development. We would highly recommend it!

Mindfire Solutions provides expert offshore PHP development services from India, gaining its expertise from years of experience in PHP web development and PHP application development. We have been working in PHP for the last 8+ years and have gained expertise on various PHP application development frameworks and PHP services.

What’s the best MVC framework for PHP?

“The 21st century has received a magical touch from the web industry. Every sector and every enterprise are now taking the assistance from web applications to enhance their business possibilities and productivity. As a result, many web domain specific technologies were born in this era starting from JSP, ASP, PHP, ROR and Python, etc. To make the web development process quicker and accurate in order to meet the expectations and high demands of the industry, many web frameworks have been developed for different web domain specific languages. These frameworks are equipped with highly optimized and well-organized libraries, modules, and packages to help the web developers in designing enterprise standard high performance web solutions. Most of the 21^st century frameworks follow MVC architecture, i.e. Model-View-Controller scheme. With MVC, the View component (user interface) remains isolated from the core logic section of the application making the development process much professional and well-organized than before. Fortunately, MVC architecture received overnight popularity from the industry and has been well accepted by both the developers and the tech experts. As a result, the industry is now flooded with many MVC web frameworks. Among those, PHP web frameworks have been a boon for the industry. This is mainly because; they are usually open source and hence enable web developers to create low cost web applications on the fly. Let’s check ‘what are the top PHP MVC web frameworks of the industry’ and then we will try to find out which one is the best?”

CakePHP- the power of OOP and ORM: It has been a continuous concern for PHP developers to implement Object Oriented approach to their application; now it is utterly possible with CakePHP. Besides other features that are common with many web frameworks, CakePHP comes with inbuilt support for ORM i.e. Object Relational Mapper. Here, the PHP developer is given adequate room to play around the database. In fact, the database tables are transformed into Objects; and different operations over the table are performed by different functions. This is very easy to digest for any web developer. Moreover, it is well equipped with CRUD scaffolding i.e. database operations like Create, Read, Update and Delete are performed in such a hassle free manner that the PHP developers need not think much about the background database queries for any modification of the database. Everything is done in a smoother manner by the framework without giving any pain to the developer. As a result, the web developer can focus more over the core logic and innovative ideas instead of running behind the database stuffs. As the database is under the control of CakePHP, any change in the application will automate the overall changes of the application without having to modify the code at every place. This establishes the power of the Object Oriented approach of CakePHP.

Zend for high performance web app development: Zend is one of the oldest frameworks of PHP and still it has remained as the first choice for many PHP developers. Zend was one of the first PHP 5 compliant frameworks for web developers, enabling them to develop contemporary web applications at a faster rate. Now, the latest Zend framework has made it PHP 7 compliant and that means more power and more efficiency than before. It has inbuilt debugging tools, i.e. xDebug and ZendDebugger to debug your source code. It makes the code not only error proof but also well maintainable. It has Zend server and when it combines with the core framework, the performance becomes outstanding, the efficiency touches every limit and the user experience improves a lot. Capability to integrate Emulators has made it future ready and to design modern web apps for different smart operating systems like Android, iOS or Windows and of course in a responsive manner. It enables the developer to have some inbuilt testing methods to be carried out over the application in a magical manner like unit testing with PHPUnit and Integrated PHPDocumentor 2.

Laravel for large scale development: It is yet another renowned PHP MVC framework having a tremendous market share gained in a very less span of time! It is best suited for large scale web solutions. Though it got launched in 2011 but by 2015, it surged out as the best PHP framework of the industry. Being a MVC framework, it enables the web developers in creating awesome web apps in a flawless manner. It is also known as FullStack because of its unmatched quality of resource handling. It has many unique features like HTML generation, optimized web serving, user authentication, etc. The list does not end! Features like automatic pagination, blade template engine, eloquent ORM, expressive syntax and reverse routing are there to boost the confidence of any PHP web developer. Modularity, flexibility and highly customizable offerings of this framework have made it possible to rule the web industry with dignity.

Symfony 2- better for speed carving websites: Symfony 2 is yet another PHP MVC framework that was gifted to the PHP developer in 2005. When it was introduced to the industry it had a clear vision to provide utmost benefit to the PHP developers in creating highly optimized and scalable web applications. Over time, it got reinvented and refined to make the framework even more useful than before. Now in 2015 it has come up as the most popular PHP framework for high speed web application development. It has a unique approach to handle multiple resources at once without compromising on the efficiency of the application. Like any other MVC framework, it also enables the PHP developer to keep logic section of the application isolated from the View section. But here, the database is handled in an optimized manner so that the end user will get the best user experience for any type of interactive communication between the user and the server. It is highly popular in creating event driven web applications that need excess power and speed for the process and Symfony 2 framework provides the same in a tranquil manner.

Yii – small yet powerful: Yii is considered as one of the smallest PHP frameworks of the industry; but it enables the web developer in creating attractive and beautiful web applications in a short span of time. It has many templates that help in creating quick web solutions without compromising on the look and feel and user experience of the application. Though, it is micro in size, but it is highly efficient and useful in crafting quick web applications preferably for small scale web solutions.

From above discussion, we find that every framework has a specific use and if they can be efficiently used by any PHP developer, the end product will be simply outstanding! So, all are best in their fields and specific circumstances and it would be biased to declare any one as the best. After all, it depends upon the project requirements and personal choice. If you want to harness the benefits of PHP then Mindfire Solutions provides expert offshore PHP development services from India, gaining its expertise from years of experience in PHP web development and PHP application development. We have been working in PHP for the last 8+ years and have gained expertise on various PHP application development frameworks and PHP services.