Sorry for not updating Salix.gr lately but I currently studing an MVC framework.
Too much talking about it and had to see the possible bennefits of using an
MVC framework. After checking the market I stoped on <a href="http://www.codeigniter.com">Code Igniter</a>.
Why? Easy to learn and not that strict. Made my life better? Dont know yet. I am still learning while I
build a new application. Time will show...

I stoped my study of codeIgniter very fast, didnt even finished that application i started. Will wait for next couple of versions to try again codeIgniter. Very well documented, organized but gives me the feeling that it is not mature yet.

Giving a try to Cake now. More mature, more powerful, realy rapid devel tool. But has something that i dont like... baddly documented. Even the manual is outdated. Refers to 3-4 versions back. If the comunity stoped naging and helped documenting would make it a realy cool thing. You have to always search google group for something that should be in the documentation (thats why i initialy started with codeigniter).

After working several years with ms visual basic which lucks amazing documentation and then with php (no frameworks) with the online manual filled with user comments and code now seems like beeing lost in space. i dont have time or not whiling to read the code to understand how things work.

A friend recently sugested me Symphony. Looks nice, well documented but it works only for php5. Whats the problem with that? Cant ask all people i work with to upgrade their servers to php5 cause their either hosted by 3rd parties or they cant. Last year i asked a client's host to upgrade that linux box atleast to php4 (was running php3) and he asked me "where i can find binaries for that?"
I know ask him to change host...

To be continued....

Last night i downloaded zendFramework 1.0.0 (had to upgrade php in my local machine to run it).
Didnt had time to try it, just some quick looks to documentation. Looks like that startup is bit of a a problem... No application template with it, no forced coding standards, it sits back waiting to be used.
Maybe I need some kind of into tutorial on MCV pattern with zendFrame work to start me up.

Will examine closely views cause it is a point that i dont like in it. Cake has layout mechanism, componentes, elements etc that makes life easier. But zendFramework supports modular structure which is important.

I guess noone is perfect....

One year later from my last post on this thread i came back with my testimonial on the subject. I tried codeIgniter but quit it very fast. After that i tried CakePhp, started an application for a client but the project was droped, not because of CakePhp but because of the client. After some time i started a new project (almost finished now) using Symfony.

I realy like Symfony. It is very well documented and it has an active forum. It takes some time to get used to it and more time to learn and take out the most of it. The main reason i like it is that it matches my way of thinking.

I got to the conclusion that the choice of framework goes down to that. Both Cake and symfony are mature with active community. Each has its pros and cons but at the end of the day comes the personal psyco factor. I find symfony crazy enough for me. I got that from a friend when we were talking about javascript he said "i love javascript! its the craziest language ever!".
So i like symfony cause it matched my crazyness

Last thing i would like to say is about joins. I read in many places about joins and probs with them. Mysql5 supports views. And with some views and extra models join issues are eliminated. So not just php upgrade to 5 but mysql upgrade to 5 gives some ease to our lives.