There are a tremendous amount of great PHP frameworks. Off the top of my head I can think of several: Laravel, Symfony, Yii, Slim, Cake, etc. Yet, for every Laravel there are probably five lesser-known, high quality frameworks. Go ahead and search Github for “PHP Framework.” As of this writing it lists 20,000 results. Sure, most aren’t fully fledged PHP frameworks, but that’s still a lot of code.

So with all of that being said, it begs the question: why on Earth would you want to do this?

The extremely short answer: I want to.

The less short answer: A PHP framework encompasses many of the areas I want to learn more about.

Why I’m Building a PHP Framework

Look, I’m very aware that there is no need for a new framework. I agree with that. For whatever problem you’re trying to solve you’ll no doubt be able to find a solid solution.

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel or make a “better” code-base. I’m under no delusions of grandeur – this framework will never see a production environment. If it does, may God have mercy on your soul.

I’m building this to learn. That’s really the long and short of it.

What I Want to Learn

There are a number of areas that I would like to have more knowledge of. Chief among them are:

• Application Architecture
• Design Patterns

Other areas include (but aren’t limited to):

• Routing
• Cache
• Database Abstraction
• IoC
• Code Organization
• Testing

All of those topics fall into the “yeah, I ‘get’ it but do I really understand it” category. That’s what I hope this little experiment solves.

What This Won’t be

It is not my intent to make a production-ready framework. I have no plans of making a robust code-base. This project is a tool to help me (and hopefully others) learn. Anything after that is just gravy.

What’s Next

Before I build a framework, I should probably figure out what exactly a framework constitutes. That doesn’t sound intimidating at all.

Wait! We Need a Name

I can’t keep referring to “the framework” or “code-base.” I’m one post in and it’s already getting old. Let’s call it the Analyze PHP Framework. Seems appropriate to me.

Originally posted on DevelopmentMatt.com