10 reasons to choose CakePHP as Framework

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10 reasons to choose CakePHP as Framework
Two months ago I wrote about benefits of
Community Frameworks compared with Home- Grown
ones. In the article I mentioned some of the
benefits of Cake, but it was scratching the
surface rather than complete info. Here I want
to list all those things, but near to each of
them I will give short explanation what is it
and how CakePHP implement it. So, if somebody ask
me what are those 10 things which drive me to
choose this framework as my primary one I will
answer with MVC Pattern Model support data
handling, with model class you can insert,
update, delete or read the data from the
database. View support data rendering on
the screen. Controller process and responds to
events and can modify data before it
interact with the model (database). With this
pattern its very easy to separate the logic from
the presentation, which is very useful for large
applications and sites. How is in CakePHP? It is
MVC Driven framework, so you cannot do much if
you dont use this pattern. I found it really
handy once you start thinking MVC way.
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ORM Object Relational Mapping is a programming
technique for converting data between
incompatible type systems in databases and
object-oriented programming languages /scarry
huh?/. With simple words this mean, that every
table is represented from a class. In these
classes you can define relations between other
tables, validation definition and also you can
predefine specific callbacks especially for that
table. The most important thing for me is the
relation definitions, because once they are
properly defined you can have sub records /from
the related tables/ without doing anything
specific you just have them when you get the
main record. This one I find as extremely
helpful. I had some projects in which I didnt
wrote a single line of SQL.
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Proper class inheritance Cake has two main
folders in each project. First one is the core
lib /cake/, where I prefer only to watch, but not
to touch /just like peep show/. The second folder
is the Application specific one /app/. These days
I read an article inheritance is evil and the
author is probably partly right, but in CakePHP
inheritance is very sensible and understandable.
All Application specific controllers extend
AppController class which is empty, but can be
extended with some extra logic or there you can
predefine some core functions which you want in
specific way. The same apply to Models which
extends AppModel where you can predefine for
example deletion instead to delete a record to
mark it only as deleted with a flag etc. With
these two classes you can change almost
everything you want.
Easily extend with Components, Helpers,
Behaviours and Plug-ins This point is very
important for me, because it allow us to create
parts of reusable code which is very helpful for
more than one project. Rather than extend Cakes
core libraries, special functionality can be
placed in components, helpers, behaviours and a
combination of Models, Views and Controllers
encapsulated as Plug-ins this way you can
modularize your projects. There are a lot of
plug-ins helpers and components in CakeForge
site, so you dont need to write everything from
the scratch.
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Zero configuration In CakePHP there isnt
single part of code /configuration/ where you
need to specify the location of the library or
the url of the site everything is auto- detect
and the only thing you need to care about is the
Database connection settings.
Build in validation When I start coding with
Cake the validation was really basic /at least
thats what I saw in the tutorials and articles/,
but now it become really useful feature where
you could attach multiple advanced validation
rules to single field. I have some ideas for
Ajax validation which I would share in a new
article later on.
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Ajax support There is Ajax helper class in the
core lib which you could use in variousways
form submit through Ajax, Event observer or build
in Autocomplete. I have an article about
Autocomplete with IDgtValue relation which you
can take a look. CakePHP uses Ajax with
Prototype and Scriptaculous.
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ACL Functionality and Security CakePHP has
build in Authorization and Security. There are
many articles explaining the ACL logic, the one
in the Cake Manual is very useful.
CRUD scaffolding CRUD come from Create, Read,
Update, Delete these are the main activities
in most of web applications. It is extremely
helpful, because with one single line of code
you can see preliminary view of your application.
In cake core lib there was bake.php, now
becoming /console/cake. With this script is very
easy to be produced all models, controllers
and views and after that they could be modified
for the specific requirements of the
application. I really like that feature and I am
using it every time when I start new application
saves a lot of time.
Ability to create tests This so far is not my
favourite feature, but I would really want to
use it in the future. Cake provide ability to
create tests which will help you to check the
critical points in your applications. There are
core tests, as well as custom ones, which
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you can build your own. Its handy when you build
a large application where some parts are
critical and the performance should be checked
carefully.