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Ask HN: PHP + mySQL framework for prototypes?

I'm a fairly novice programmer with basic PHP + mySQL, it works for me, but I'd like to get into using a framework to speed-up development of prototypes.

Possibly one that uses basic MVC, and has a mySQL class.

There's this: http://toroweb.org/

Any other recommendations?

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It doesn't really matter what framework you use. They will help you develop things faster, provide some structure to your code, and in a lot of cases write the repetitive code for you. Find a framework that makes sense to you - they all use a slightly different approach to development - and run with it.

If you want some other suggestions:

http://www.cakephp.org http://www.codeigniter.com http://framework.zend.com

PHP has a MySQL class built in (PDO, which has bindings for MySQL and just about everything else). If you mean an ORM, then you could consider using something like Doctrine.

Alternatively, consider becoming familiar with one of the major PHP frameworks. Obviously getting started will take some effort, but then you'll have its entire toolkit at the ready when you move on to prototyping your second, third, and Nth project.

Below I'll list some PHP frameworks and feedback about them--not from experience working with them necessarily, but instead based on their support lifetimes.

Yii: Support for version 1.x ends on Dec 31, 2012. Version 2.x is not yet out of beta. http://www.yiiframework.com/

Zend: ZF 1.x is the current version. ZF 2 is supposed to be around the corner, but that was also true last summer so the timing on this is a bit unclear (2.0.0 beta1 is the latest beta). http://framework.zend.com/

CodeIgniter: CodeIgniter 2 was released in 2011, so it's less likely to have its API change on you substantially in the near term. http://codeigniter.com/

Symfony: Symfony2 was released in 2011, so like CI, it's less likely to have its API change on you substantially in the near term. http://symfony.com/

CakePHP: CakePHP 2 came out in 2011, so same thing applies here. http://cakephp.org/

AuraPHP: The first PHP 5.4 framework. Less developed than the others at this point. Not on the same scale of popularity as the others, but it merits a mention as the first PHP 5.4 framework. http://auraphp.github.com/

Kohana is cool. It basically tries to be the PHP equivalent of Ruby on Rails.

http://kohanaframework.org

After a fair bit of research, I think this one looks like my best option. What's the learning curve like? (considering I've never used a framework before)

I can't really say since I had been doing PHP for quite a few years and had a few years of actual Rails experience before I used it. Sorry.

Check out http://laravel.com, newer framework but very easy to use, great documentation.

toro actually looks pretty clean - if you have to use php I'd say go for it. also - check out red bean for rapid orm style db development. BUT I'd also advocate checking out python, ruby, clojure, node js if you aren't already bound to PHP...

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