Show HN: Dumbo – Hono inspired framework for PHP | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Dumbo – Hono inspired framework for PHP

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76 pointsnotrab65 comments

Hey HN, I last PHP professionally over 15 years ago, and I loved it. I switched to Ruby on Rails, then Node/Go/React/GraphQL as there was a lot more demand for those roles. However, PHP is back!

In true JavaScript fashion, I decided to learn PHP again by building a framework to put all the pieces together in my brain.

I absolutely love Hono.dev, and decided to base the PHP framework on that. Dumbo isn't intended to compete with Laravel, Symphony or Slim, if anything, it's something people can use in production, but also contribute to and be used as a learning resource for others.

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You're requiring PHP 8.3 but not using some of the most powerful tools in 7+: strict types.

``` /* @var array<string, mixed> Variables stored in the context */ private $variables = []; ```

This should be typed as `array` (heck, I'd argue ArrayObject instead) and all your classes should have `declare(strict_types=1);` at the top.

Your `Dumbo\Helpers` classes are basically static mine traps that you are unable to mock in unit tests. Why does `BasicAuth` expose a single static method but then calls a bunch of other static methods? What ends up happening in any class that uses any of your `Dumbo\Helpers` classes will always run whatever code is defined in these helper classes.

I'm unsure where the bootstrapping process begins. What file does your webserver need to call to handle a new request? I am hoping it is within a root-level directory and not at the root level itself. In other words, `/public/index.php` vs `/index.php`. Your quickstart in README.MD makes it pretty clear that you expect the latter, which is highly unsafe. See any number of poorly configured webservers that stop processing PHP for any reason but now show your site's full contents to anyone passing by.

I would strongly argue against _any_ magic in your framework. Specifically, routes: they should be explicitly defined. I still work with a legacy Symfony 1 framework project and I can't tell you how much I detest magic routing. For a modern example see how Symfony 2+ requires explicit route definition. Heck, how it requires explicit everything because magic should be left to magicians.

Your framework seems like it can only handle `application/json` and `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` requests, but not `multipart/form-data`.

Take these as positive criticisms of your work. It's "fine". I wouldn't use it, I would actively recommend against using it, but I would actively recommend against using anything that's not Symfony (or Laravel if I were drunk). I do not think your project is at the "Show HN" level - it is still far too under-developed.

Appreciate the feedback, I'll work on it. I have lots to learn it seems!

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike so much about Laravel?

1) *magic* 2) Its ORM of choice uses ActiveRecord pattern which I find to be hideous. DataMapper is far superior 3) Its weird facade patterns is terrible

I can (and have!) gone in-depth into my misgivings with Laravel, but it is fine for most projects and teams. It has elevated the average codebase quality throughout the PHP community and introduced many engineers to what PHP can do. Its creator and community have been a large net-positive to PHP as a whole.

I still prefer Symfony:

1) explicit 2) DataMapper ORM by default 3) What I am used to

Makes sense. I agree on the ORM. I actively don't use Eloquent when I use Laravel. It's fine for simple actions but I find it can get in the way as the project grows more complex. Thanks for sharing.

Symfony has a huge lot of magic (text/non-typed config files, factory/abstract bloats, ...), and even dark magic (compilation passes, ...), but it's better than Laravel in many ways indeed.

A simpler framework with modern techniques would be great though.

Too much angst about non standards and preferences. Everyone codes the way they feel comfortable and decides what to implement because the more mumbojumbo pattern magic included the more complexity you introduce to your codebase. And the development time skyrockets.

Just because someone wrote a book about patterns, it doesn't mean it's the high standard and the holy bible by any means. These people are mostly control freaks, who like to exert control on people and think their excrement is akin to a lump of gold.

And then there are the preachers - like you - who disseminate the bullshit these pattern monkeys rant day and night.

We are in agreement about Laravel's ORM, but I disagree about the magic. Laravel's "magic" is just convention over configuration, and most things can be configured as well.

But really, who thought mixins was a good idea? It's the only place in the wild I've seen somebody bind $this when calling closures.

What do you think of Slim Framework as far as best practices for modern PHP in a micro framework (which is similar to OP's Dumbo)? Are there any other micro frameworks you recommend?

https://www.slimframework.com/

At the risk of being piled on by fans of Slim (see fans of Laravel), I don't use slim frameworks.

For large projects when you get down to it, slim frameworks are simply frameworks where you have to add in components yourself, vs shipping with sane defaults.

Symfony comes with Doctrine, Twig, etc, but you can choose not to use them or even include them.

With slim frameworks if they are built correctly they will have hooks to add these components but you have to choose them and import them and set them up.

I have not worked on a small project in years, and have not bothered looking at slim frameworks in as much time, so my knowledge might be out of date ... but a quick glance through Slim's documentation tells me I'm still fairly close.

I'll add on to this too, as someone who largely agrees!

I work for a company that has several mid-sized PHP projects. Some started life back with early PHP5 - eg 5.1.

The biggest reason I don't like slim frameworks is that they make every project unique.

Projects that start small rarely stay small, and if every project gets to pick it's own router, it's own method of doing CLI commands, it's own ORM, it's own messaging/queue stack, etc - then well intentioned decisions create a ton of variety in projects over time and it makes it very hard for people to jump from project to project. It also makes upgrades a mammoth task.

We tested Slim, Laravel & Symfony and settled on Symfony.

We found huge advantages in using a framework that can be installed piece-by-piece as you need it, but where the pieces are the same every time & consistently designed, and where the whole thing is designed to be upgraded in one go.

Going with Symfony has been a genuine productivity improvement for us - every project follows the same basic structure, we try to follow Symfony best practices, we try to minimise tons of external dependencies. It makes maintenance much much easier, and makes something like 'hey, we really should be processing this async in the background' an easy step - just install symfony/messenger, rather than evaluating different options, etc.

edit: we didn't go for Laravel because Eloquent really didn't compare well to Doctrine, and the amount of hard to debug 'magic' was much worse for us than Symfony.

We actually target a HUGE legacy PHP codebase (its over 16 years old, with over 1M LOC) with Haxe. I would not EVER write vanilla PHP for anything else than a toy website, because there is no amount of testing that makes it stable enough.

We still have a lots of legacy PHP, but its slowly being refactored to Haxe. With Haxe we get a really nice typesystem, and a "faster than Go" compiler. It has pushed our productivity thru the roof.

We still need to use external dependencies tho, as PHP lacks any concurrency in the core language, so we also have a Go API for fetching data concurrently, and also use it as a BI directional socket for the frontend and as a queue server.

Otherwise, the stack is pretty much PHP7 from top to bottom.

Very interesting to hear about the Haxe PHP target being used like that. How did you start introducing it to the codebase? Were there any devs familiar with Haxe in the company already?

See my above comment for a semi detailed version of how we do things.

This is really cool to hear as someone who used to experiment with Haxe for game development. Would love to read a case study.

We started small. And prototyped with just a single feature.

Basically we generate code in our src folder under a reserved namespace, and other PHP code can then use that code with imports. As we grow, we might want to split this into separate compilation units (we are not there yet, as the Haxe compiler is really fast!)

At the moment the generated PHP code is checked in source control, again we might want to have this done in CI, but it works kind of nicely at the moment.

The tricky bits are how to "speak" to PHP. Haxe is a really nice functional language (even its syntax is traditionally class based, but you can have module level fields in Haxe since 2020), so its pretty annoying to handle option types etc from the PHP side. We are still not decided on this part, and many APIs expose duplicate functions for some general task, like foo and foo_exn, and the one that ends with _exn throws instead of returning a variant (like option/maybe etc)

Also, its tricky to design where data is fetched from. We tend to keep the Haxe code as pure as possible, and only taking input and returning output (not doing any IO). We also write our own typings for externals, this has actually been really good for us, as we can observe easily what we actually use, and if we can remove some dependency that has some one feature we only use.

Overall, im amazed not more PHP devs look into Haxe as its basically a better version of what is TypeScript > JavaScript. Also there is no other compile to PHP language im aware of that ha the same robustness and features Haxe has.

I don't see myself ever using anything other than Laravel, but love these kinds of projects just to see what new ideas they might spark for the wider PHP community. Also interested in https://tempestphp.com/

That looks awesome!

I was about to start looking for a PHP micro framework. I wish Lumen was still supported.

Is FuelPHP or CodeIgniter still going? Those were my two favourites back in the day before Laravel came on the scene.

I don't think Fuel is at all, and CodeIgniter is... but not really?

IMO Laravel is kind of the spiritual successor to CodeIgniter, although of course a lot has changed between V1 and V11

True true. I went back and forth so much in the early days of CodeIgniter, Rails, Fuel and Cake.

Eventually discovered just building stuff was going to bring me the most joy, no matter the tool. It's been a joy learning PHP again though, even if I do suck at it right now.

Symfony 7.2 can work as a micro framework, believe it or not: https://symfony.com/blog/new-in-symfony-7-2-simpler-single-f...

They say it "can" but it is not first class in their docs or minds, so it's mostly up to you to figure out how to do most of things then. It would be better to have an independent micro framework with a clear scope of what it can and cannot do compared to the full Symfony stack.

When you say micro framework, what are you looking for? If you're just looking for a routing library then something like Symfony Flex might be what you want.

I find when I start a project I pretty quickly want to add an ORM, models, and maybe some middleware, and then I'm at a point where I might as well just use Laravel because it's fast enough and I know my way around.

Can't go wrong with Slim: https://www.slimframework.com/

But if you're looking for something more modern and interesting, then Hyperf looks pretty cool. They have a mini-framework version you can check out: https://github.com/hyperf/nano

It does require Swoole, but that is a lot easier to get your hands on these days

While it's indeed too much boilerplate necessary for good DI, just the first paragraph sounds insane to me: "Tempest features a unique concept called discovery. Tempest will scan your code and find out what to do with it: from controller routes to event handlers, from console commands to dependency initializers; Tempest will detect everything without you having to write a single line of configuration or bootstrap code."

I wish the market didn't determine the technologies we get to work with. because at times the market can be wrong due to incentives.

e.g the market was wrong on graphQL.

btw Hono is cool, but found the api surface area insufficient for my node.js usecases.

How was the market objectively wrong on GraphQL?

I ask a a REST turned GraphQL advocate to be clear but criticisms I hear tend to be opinions or issues with specific implementations but not ones based on the technical shortcomings of the technology

I can't comment on all the shortcomings and this may be reflective on my lack of experience with different implementations, but doesn't using GraphQL basically just enable a tonne of unoptimised database queries to occur that, at scale, could cause some serious load issues?

GraphQL says nothing about databases at all. Resolvers can get resources from anything, they’re agnostic.

None of that is inherent to the technology but it’s a common folly among developers. This is an issue with REST too but it can be more obfuscated

If a certain arrangement makes it more likely to write bad queries, and it requires extra care to write optimal queries, then it’s a worse interface to a database. I bet for really database intensive applications graphQL adds more work than it saves.

It’s not though. Especially since GraphQL makes no mention of databases. It’s a resource agnostic protocol.

This isn’t a technical issue with GraphQL. It’s a culture issue among developers who shoehorn GraphQL and don’t use it appropriately

As someone who works on very database intense application GraphQL saves me more work than its ever caused.

Any chance you can point to a good graphql implementation/framework that someone could use to learn best practices?

You're talking about the implementation of the protocol, right?

That is a good implementation of it, called GraphQL Yoga[0]

However I'm concerned there is a slight disconnect here. I'm saying that the technical specification of GraphQL does not lend itself to being bad, rather its the failure of developers to really understand its purpose and what its for (its a giant aggregator, with various ways to optimally aggregate things together, depending on what is optimal for a given problem set)

For that, I recommend becoming more familiar with the specification itself[1] because thats what I'm talking about. The specification (and thus its technical nature) doesn't prescribe anything regarding how you get data on to the graph. Many people equate GraphQL with database problems[2]

This doesn't mean I don't understand that GraphQL has shortcomings, but all approaches to APIs have short comings. I have found GraphQL has the least amount

[0]: https://github.com/dotansimha/graphql-yoga

[1]: https://spec.graphql.org

[2]: Common complaint I see all the time. I find it stems from a failure to understand how the entirety of GraphQL is meant to work, and some of the mechanics within. Like when to appropriately leverage DataLoader[3], for instance.

[3]: https://github.com/graphql/dataloader

> GraphQL makes no mention of databases. It’s a resource agnostic protocol.

So the QueryLanguage is just marketing?

GraphQL has too many foot guns for your typical SMB to implement successfully, especially pivoting from REST. It requires you to architect your solution much further ahead than most companies have the capability to.

I prefer it over SOAP, but I think it's far too easy to ignore:

N+1 issues

Security (found that we had our entire schema open including internal data routes at my last job), also we had to refactor from patients being company -> patient to company -> pharmacy -> patient... that was fun

Overcomplicating resolvers

Not implementing pagination upfront

Dead end schema designs, since you need to plan much further ahead it really hurts when you mess it up. In REST you can make a V2 of a route and move on. Especially since many people ignore modules at first. Even large corporations get stuck with UserEntity_V2, updateUser_V2.

IMO if you are going "wow if only we had GraphQL" and your team only knows REST you are always better off improving your REST tooling and standards. For example, when adding a new entity/resource you can just plan to understand how your own teams intend to query for this data, rather than guessing with GraphQL or implementing every search pattern.

All of these are developer issues and not issues with the technology. They aren’t inherent to GraphQL.

By your own admission it’s sloppy developer work that causes issues it’s not the tech.

REST APIs actually do have an inherent problem, which is they’re one call == one source. Everything has to be bespoke to the endpoint, where as GraphQL as a technology allows one to not have to do that.

Versioning APIs is a code smell. With GraphQL you can combine queries by using Fragments for example. You could also perform concurrent resolution with resolvers and merge data results if if it’s appropriate for the scenario to resolve a single query. There is far more flexibility in the model but you as a developer are 100% in charge of performance and such, no different than REST. GraphQL gives far more flexibility in finding a solution for any given scenario, where as REST is an extremely rigid 1 == 1 resource coupling.

As for pagination isn’t built into REST. Anything “standard” about that was bolted on and varies quite a lot. Where as GraphQL does address this[0] on an implementation reference level.

Regarding exposing schema, while I question if there is the security risk you're implying it to be (lots of organizations expose their GraphQL schemas, like Salesforce and GitHub) but never the less, any good implementation will have a single line option for turning it off. Apollo does (arguably the most popular of the implementations) but so does GraphQL Yoga and even implementations in other languages.

As far as developers go, the biggest mistake developers make is creating schema that is simply a clone of their database schema at the end of the day, and this is the absolute worst way to go about implementing GraphQL. Its explicit purpose is to have a middle layer that lets you express APIs for intended purpose, not to be coupled to your database schema

[0]: https://graphql.org/learn/pagination/

All problems with all software are developer issues. Technically, we could do everything in Assembly, but we don't.

Ideally, a technology needs to solve as many problems as possible while introducing as few problems as possible. That is why I am not sure every organization should use GraphQL.

If someone came to me from an SMB and asked "should we switch to GraphQL" I would first ask what problems they have, and what they believe GraphQL will solve. Then make an informed decision, the answer is not "yes, you should always use GraphQL".

That wasn't the question as posed though. It was 'regarding its technical basis, what issue does GraphQL have?' and rarely do I ever get an actual technical problem with how graphql is structured.

REST has at least 1 inherent flaw in its model, which is 1-1 API resource coupling.

Now, if we want to talk about perhaps skill threshold? Yeah, GraphQL requires a higher level of confidence and experience to use correctly.

"The market" = facebook. It shouldn't be a surprise.

I've went through a similar journey, with some PHP in the early days, then a lot of Merb/Rack/RoR experience. Though I'd not say PHP is back. I'd avoid it for new projects as there are --IMHO-- much better languages available for free.

What I really liked from webdevt in Ruby was Rack. https://github.com/rack/rack (gosh I prefer the simplicity of the old logo)

And I found a Rack-like architecture in "http4k" https://www.http4k.org

In a way Kotlin can be looked at as a "typed Ruby". Sure Ruby now has optional types, but I believe it's not something easily bolted on later. The whole lang + stdlib should be built in an idiomatic way. Changing the language a lot later usually creates a mess in the stdlib.

The framework http4k delivers is very similar Hono/Dumbo, but it has a Rack built in as well. Also, http4k is make by functional programming enthusiasts. So it clearly separates logic and data.

Small request: Please make Hono clickable in the README!

If nothing else, I love the logo. A hyper-realistic take on the ElePHPhant [0].

[0] https://www.elephpant.com/

There is definitely a discussion like this under every repo at this point but I genuinely do not understand why people feel the need to have AI art for their GitHub projects. It’s subjective but it just looks tacky and cheap, as is nearly always case with AI art. Some online, non-AI logo generator that slaps a generic royalty free icon with a font would be miles better, or honestly even dropping it altogether and just having a header.

I think it looks cute

Small world! Congrats on getting up there on Hacker News, too!

Thanks Campak!

What's your distinguishing point over Slim and Silex (rip) because from your example script I don't see anything different. I mean, how would it, (un?)fortunately PHP syntax doesn't let you play as much with DSLs as Ruby or other languages.

I guess that's still to figure out... it's mostly been an experiment to relearn PHP... I guess keeping a similar DX to Hono's context->X is where I was coming from originally.

This is what I was thinking as well. From the README examples it looks like every other modern PHP micro framework.

100% like every other framework. I'm primarily a JS dev, so it's in my nature to create yet another framework...

But seriously, this has been a tool for me to relearn PHP, and those contributing so far have also been learning PHP. If it ends up just bein (and nothing more than) something helps me, as well as others learn more about PHP, it's a success.

perfect. beautifully designed. I will try this for my next side project.

Yay PHP! Let me know how you get on

For a programming language mostly out of favor, the effort to get a framework right and find the right audience to use this over existing options will be tricky. Good luck!

Reminded me of https://fatfreeframework.com/

Are there any frameworks other programming languages (besides this one) that are directly inspired by Hono?

Yeah, I believe Sinatra https://sinatrarb.com/ or Padrino https://padrinorb.com/ inspired Hono. So you are back to Ruby ;)

Sinatra is beautiful!

Honestly beautifully designed. Really lives up to Hono name

Hono is to credit for the design, really nice!

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