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More silly Zend Framework idiocy..

June 16, 2008

This really misguided individual, Matthew Ratzloff, put some rather stupid comments and opinions about Zend Framework on my blog post. I replied to them, here, in a new blog entry:

> Ugh. I'm having flashbacks from my computer science days,

For me, in my daily work in genetics research, every day is a "computer science" day. I'm sad for you that yours seem to have ended. :(

> when arrogant
> nerds with egos looked down on you if didn't use Linux for your desktop
> because it was unusable.

I prefer to work with arrogant nerds, they are usually the best and brightest.

> Can I tell you something? Know your audience.

Meaning what exactly? I use Google Analytics, and I've tested my site with every browser I get traffic from, for example I know most of my visitors are not using ie/windoze but I did take the effort to make it look nice in ie6. All then I know my HTML passes validator.w3.org. So then that just leaves the content, and well.. it is what it is. If you don't like it, feel free to go fuck yourself.

> I am pretty open-minded but
> was immediately turned off by the level of vitriol in your rant.

Glad to help. Anytime I can offend some whiny dumbass like yourself, it makes me fucking happy.

> Now, let me talk about the specific issues you raised.

Ok, lets..

> 1. Models. You can add whatever validation you need in accessor methods.

The goddamn data validation needs to go in the model. Why would I give a flying fuck about validating data when "accessing" it? At that point it's already in the goddamn database, it's already fucked. Data validation needs to happen _before_ the data goes in. Jesus Christ, please turn in your CS degree.

And last I checked, Zend Framework doesn't even have a "model". So please, just shut the fuck up.

> There are differing opinions on database manipulation, however, and other
> implementations will come. There's an ActiveRecord proposal currently that
> depends on PHP 5.3.

A proposal? Hilarious. Rails' ActiveRecord is more than 3 years old now.. 4, possibly 5 years old by the time Zend Framework gets around to adding one. Why would I want to wait for that? Clue: I'm not.

> 2. Coupling. It's a different philosophy. I hate tight coupling. I prefer
> Merb to Rails; you would disagree.

I don't prefer either. I base my framework opinions on actual usage experience. I didn't go seeking Rails because I had a requirement for a "tightly" coupled framework. I've never used Merb, notice the lack of opinions about it on this site?

But Zend Framework I know. I came to hate Zend Framework because I used it for several months on a project and found it completely hilarious compared to _anything_ else I've ever used.

Loosely coupled shit is still shit. And most of Zend Framework isn't even coupled, much less "loosely" coupled.

> 3. Zend_Rest. You didn't raise the biggest issue of all with Zend_Rest,
> which is that it's not RESTful. I and others have argued against its
> inclusion in the framework, instead favoring a specialized Route
> specifically for REST.

Some people think REST is the future.. I think the jury is still out. I find anything more than a simply app requires custom routes anyway.

> There is a Zend_Soap. The unit tests are being finished up. It will be
> included in a future version.

Good for Zend Framework. I don't have time to wait around. Rails is here right now today and works really well for the couple of web services I've written using it.

> 4. JavaScript coupling. I wrote an entire blog post about this:
> http://www.builtfromsource.com/

Sorry I don't have time to read it. Especially since it appears quite old in web-technology years.

> I don't think there's much value added by coupling PHP and JavaScript
> frameworks,

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard a "web developer" say, especially this day and time. It's been at least 6 or 7 years since I built a site that didn't have Javascript in it.

Again, the reason why one uses a framework is to do less work, not more.

> but Zend apparently does, which is why they've announced a
> partnership with Dojo. There will be a variety of Dojo-specific tools
> and helpers included in the framework going forward.

Partnership? Hilarious. Rails already supports Dojo, right now, today:

http://dojo.toolbocks.com/

No Prototype? No Scriptaculous? No JQuery?

Rails supports all of those, already.. as in right now, today. No sort of "partnership" waiting to be ironed out, not in a proposal, not in testing, ready to go right now, today.

> 5. Both projects you mention (Rails and Django) have existed longer than
> Zend Framework.

Point?

> Rails was the first real Web framework for Ruby, hence
> its popularity.

Point?

> Django is one of the few Web frameworks for Python (maybe
> 10, only two or three of which are popular).

Again, point?

> PHP being a Web language, it
> has easily a couple dozen Web frameworks,

And look at how many MVC frameworks it has that are "Modeled after Ruby on Rails":

http://www.phpwact.org/php/mvc_frameworks

> many of which have existed for
> years and are currently more mature and more popular. It's not a fair
> comparison.

Ah, so to be "fair", I should wait until Zend Framework is 1.0 before comparing it to anything? Oh but wait, it became 1.0 nearly a year ago:

http://andigutmans.blogspot.com/2007/07/zend-framework-10-released.html

And that's exactly what I find most hilarious. How did Zend Framework even become 1.0 when it's still this incomplete, bugy, and mis-wired even at 1.5.2 ?

> Nor is it relevant. Framework choice is largely a matter of software
> architecture philosophy, and regardless of the fact that CakePHP is
> probably more popular, it does not match my philosophy.

You know, most of your opinions have no point and vice-versa.

> 6. Zend_Registry has other features that make it more useful than $GLOBALS.

Name fucking one. Tell me one thing Zend_Registry does that I can't do (with less code) using just $GLOBALS. I'm waiting..

> 7. The problem you found is an issue that should be corrected.

All software has bugs, but for me, barely using most of Zend Framework, to find as many bugs as I found, in just a few months.. Well, lets just say.. pffft.

> 8. Straw man example aside, the documentation for Zend Framework is very
> good, and definitely much better than Rails (not hard to do).

Rails documentation is awesome:

http://railsmanual.com/
http://api.rubyonrails.com/
http://corelib.rubyonrails.org/
http://stdlib.rubyonrails.org/

Perhaps the problem is with your ability to understand it.

> Again, you prefer tightly-coupled frameworks. Many developers don't.

Yeah, whatever you say.. I mean with all your research, and evidence, and stuff.

Looks to me, and my mail reader, quite the opposite.

Tags:

rubyonrails, zend

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