> Summing it up, a framework tries to save you work by make you define an overly complex configuration, that has to accomodate every possible use case.

I was disappointed that the author constructs his arguments against frameworks by using Zend, and Zend alone... when there are things like Symfony, Cakephp (which I'm a fan of) and Code Igniter. It is what allows him make a generalization like the one above that is flat out wrong for frameworks like codeigniter and Cake.

I've been a PHP guy for many years (still am) and I know that as you program more and more in PHP, you come up with a way of doing things that eventually become your own sort of framework ... so the people that really appreciate frameworks are more experienced developers (no insult to newbs) because they can more easily recognize all the problems that these frameworks solve for them ... to newer programmers it looks like bureaucracy, magic and stuff that gets in the way of them actually expressing their ideas in code.

I know. I was one of those guys.

So yeah ... You can use PHP without frameworks and if you like doing that, then keep doing it ... however, I would advise any PHP developer to keep an eye on the major frameworks and keep evaluating ways that they can save you time and effort as you take on more complex applications with bigger and better teams (yes ... you actually get to develop code with other people as you take on bigger projects).

PS: My only complaint with the PHP framework I like ... CakePHP, is that it can be a bit slow and the documentation can be truly horrendous ... to where you have to go digging around in the source code to figure out the things you can put in the $options array in a call like this ...

    checkbox(string $fieldName, array $options)

Things like that, I bet, slow its adoption.