> - no php code in templates
But it does abstract the template/view nicely.
On a personal note and this will most probably get me down votes. I would not recommend anyone to use PHP frameworks. But I understand real-life factors like current skill set, dev availability, etc.
Laravel definitely has all the hype, but Yii has been around much longer and is better architected imho. It does have a slightly steeper learning curve and isn't as instantaneously easy to use at first, but it's worth the effort.
I haven't created anything in PHP for years. However, I used to create stuff with Yii and I was pretty happy with it.
My feeling was that if you use a proper framework and you're a decent programmer, PHP is actually not that bad.
Why do you advise against it?