Saturday, November 15, 2014

Re: The (bad) perception and image of CakePHP in the public

I've spent some time thinking about these issues, as I'm quite involved in that aspect of the project, and have a lot of contact with areas of the community where these issues come up. However, I've just become a dad, so time has been cut in half for me.

Florian, you and me have talked a lot about some of these problems in the past. I added my 2 scents to that question on Quora, you can read it here:

http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-Cakephp-popular-despite-being-one-of-the-earliest-php-framework-to-be-written/answer/James-Watts-2

Basically, for me it can all break down into 2 problem areas:
  • CakePHP has been around for a long time, and therefore has a legacy that it has to live with. This legacy is unfortunately propagated by misinformation (the FUD you mentioned) and the notoriety that takes time and effort to shrug off.
  • The framework follows a convention-over.configuration philosophy, which is opinionated, so there will be people who love, and others who hate it. That comes with the package.
I would definitely +100 for Jose Lorenzo turning this sour issue into an opportunity to bring out some positivity. The feedback has been really amazing, and shows where the CakePHP community stands and the real sentiments of developers using the framework. You guys are awesome, and you know it.

If I were to draw any conclusion on the "bad" image idea, I would say it's something we can improve as community, and it starts with each person doing what they can. Answer a question on Quora. Write a blog post, or comment on one, especially where CakePHP is being poorly or incorrectly represented. Post around the social networks, get conversations started, or get involved where CakePHP is getting a bad wrap. There's no obligation, but every little bit helps. You're not alone, know that where you go, another 10 can follow. The strength of the community is a vital aspect of the project, not more than the code itself, but integral to the ecosystem. This is how Open Source works, it's people power. That said, be nice, polite, don't get dragged into a flame or take the bait, and rest upon solid technical arguments instead of making opinions the source of your claims. Sounds obvious, but it's easy to get carried away and become a part of the problem very easily.

Just remember that CakePHP is all of us, and it's what we make of it. It's good to raise concern of issues like this, but like a nice guy once said, "be the change you wish to see in the world".


On Monday, September 29, 2014 11:15:54 PM UTC+2, Florian Krämer wrote:
In the official CakePHP Facebook group Yanuar Nurcahyo asked about opinions on that link http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-Cakephp-popular-despite-being-one-of-the-earliest-php-framework-to-be-written

I'll quote my own comment I've added to that posting:

I'm a little shocked about the wrong information people spreading there as well as the amount of false information. Especially the one that got 4 up-votes. Most of the answers there read like FUD or written by people who can't or won't read documentation. Also I really don't get why people always "need" bleeding edge php support. There is no urgent need or do you migrate you app / server to a new php version just because it's cool? The only problem that CakePHP has is an image problem.

What I would like to discuss in this thread is reasons and solution to them. Why has CakePHP such a negative perception? The thing that bothers me personally the most is why the *uck do people say it has a bad documentation? Seriously, I don't get it. Can't they find the documentation? Can't they use it? Or is it really just FUD by some <random-framework> fanboys?

The "stone age php version" isn't a very valid argument IMHO. Yes, I agree, CakePHP felt behind other frameworks for at least ~2 years and I've missed the namespace support more than one time. But that was really the only language feature I was really missing. Everything else is sugar on top of the cake. I don't know if other people update their servers and apps for fun and if they do the required testing for free for their clients...but well, looks like some guys out there have more a cowboy-coder attitude than a professional one.

Also I don't get why people complain about the architecture of CakePHP, yes it is different, yes it gives you everything out of the box and isn't a package made of 100 loose libs and then glued together. This is IMHO actually an advantage and makes it easy to get started with it. And seriously, how often do you change the ORM stack of <random-framework> in reality? And on top of that, CakePHP 3.0, as far as I can tell, is more decoupled than 2.0 was. For example the face pattern in Laravel is, as far as I've worked with it and understood it, just one way you can use for dependency injection. The face seems to works like a proxy. I might be wrong, I haven't spent much time with it yet. SF2 is using a container object to deal with the dependencies. However, my point here is other frameworks appear to be more fancy and by this attract people who are looking for fancy things, "interesting" design patterns and architecture. Which brings us back to the cowboy-coder attitude. Something doesn't has to be fancy to just work.

I know that for example Symfony gets a lot attention and exposure through having virtually one domain per component of their framework and a nice design for these sites and for whatever reason Symfony manages it somehow to get massive funding. Creating all these pages and a fancy design takes time and money. So I don't think doing something similar would be an option for CakePHP. Honestly I have no ideas what could be done to help making CakePHP look better (and stop these silly guys from spreading FUD). I would not mind all their critics at all if they would bring valid and detailed arguments. But everybody complaining about CakePHP is just repeating other peoples FUD about a bad documentation and not exactly mentioning what is wrong with the architecture. Going into a discussion is like going into a fight without a weapon. But well, the problem here is nobody fights these false "arguments". :(

I personally don't mind using Symfony2 or Laravel, they're good frameworks as well, but I don't think that CakePHP 3.0 has to hide in any aspect, nor had Cake2 when it was new. But CakePHP has a completely different philosophy than SF2 and Laravel, obviously one that people are not used to.

So, has anyone constructive critics about that? Maybe others here don't even think CakePHP has a problem with it's perception?

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