Why Symfony Is The Best Framework To Start ?
I thought I might put in a few good words for Symfony to all of you wandering which PHP framework to choose. Because there’s a whole bunch out there some of them worth mentioning are f.e. CakePHP, Zend and Symfony.
Why Symfony ?
The tutorial
First of all, the main reason that appealed to me when I started was that there is a whole 24 day-by-day tutorial which will teach you all you need to know about Symfony to get you started. Of course you won’t get a good grip of the framework after finishing the tutorial, but it should encourage the desired way of thinking in you. The Jobeet (set of 24 tutorials) covers everything you would want to know to build a basic website, from setting up the project, through forms, to f.e. having fun with AJAX 
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The documentation
This is the first place to go whenever you feel you have doubts about writing some snippet of code. This is practically the holy book of Symfony where all the laws are writtend down. Symfony’s documentation is written in a not complicated language and when you’re looking for something in particular it’s made in a way that you won’t spend hours searching the desired topic. So basically this and the jobeet tutorial are the pros which make Symfony a framework reaching out a hand to the developers.
Plugins
Writing about plugins is basically the point where the Symfony community should get the needed applause. Whenever you’re searching for a functionality or thinking on a way to design one, go here first. There are a lot of useful ones there f.e. a plugin for Twitter, Facebook or a plugin for user authorization. And most important they are lively developed.
ORM
I’m using at the moment Propel as my primary ORM but the default choice in near future will be Doctrine. Anyway, forget about writing long and pesky SQL statements. You’ll just love the object methods that handle all the stuff for you. All you need to the is focus on your applications goal and Symfony will handle your database in neat objects, ain’t it fun 
?
The tasks
This is where the fun part is as well. Building symfony and integrating it with your database is just a few words typed in the command line away. Just type ./symfony in your project’s directory and you’ll get the list of all the tasks that’ll help you on your way to finish your application. The more confident you’ll get with symfony, the more fond you’ll find yourself of those sneaky little bastards that make a developers day easier.
Because It is fun to learn !
Yeah, that’s wright. And you should check it as well. Take it for a spin, spend time with it and you’ll see that after each day you’ll get more anxious to learn new stuff and after a few weeks you’ll wonder why didn’t you find it earlier . Of course it is hard to mention all the great stuff about Symfony, but i think I’ve drawn the picture for you, why it is the best one to start with. Have fun and good luck !
Hey good stuff…keep up the good work!
Bill Bartmann
September 3, 2009 at 6:46 am
Yeah framework make out life easier. Anyway, would like to introduce you another framework called – DooPHP – fastest PHP Framework
vickie
August 27, 2009 at 1:13 pm
thanks for the tip
Karol Sójko
August 27, 2009 at 1:18 pm
i have been using symfony two and half year its amazing
Devran Tukan
August 26, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Definitely Code Ingniter as framework for start.It’s the easiest to learn the MVC pattern.
I had to do a Symphony site to change and it was a nightmare there.I like better CI , ZF or Cake…NOT Symphony….I don’t like the code to be generated. Programmer should write the code.
Gafitescu Daniel
August 21, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Thanks for the comment. In my opinion it depends what should be generated but all in all i think it is a waste of time to write some things by your own when it could be handled by this neat framework
Cheers ^_^
Karol Sójko
August 22, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Interesting review. Great points made.
I still would recommend CodeIgniter as a better framework to “start”.
Symfony is quite a chunky framework. CodeIgniter might be more appealing for someone who just want to get on with coding right away.
Also shame they chose prototype over jquery. Would be excellent if they offered the ability to pick between the two.. (wouldn’t be that hard to implement the built in ajax api for both js frameworks).
great framework though
Ben
Ben
August 21, 2009 at 1:26 am
First of all thank you for the comment.
I totally agree with the prototype vs jquery issue. In my opinion jquery is more popular and more intensively developed so it should be considered as the primary js framework, but maybe it will change in future
Karol Sójko
August 21, 2009 at 8:16 am
thanks for this post,
I got the point of Why Symfony??
I think Symfony is one of the most PHP frameworks used between developers, but what about to compare it with Zend framework!!! which one is better to end with or stick with?
Abdullah Radwan
August 19, 2009 at 4:21 am
Thanks for the comment
, as for the comparison ZEND vs Symfony you can go here: http://ff.im/-6FjFH
Karol Sójko
August 19, 2009 at 8:28 am
thank you for this post, really the symfony is the best framework for start as for ever!!!
Mehdi
August 18, 2009 at 10:59 am
Thanks for the comment Mehdi
I’m glad you appreciated the post and yes, symfony is the best one out there 
!
Karol Sójko
August 18, 2009 at 11:05 am