Sunday 30 March 2014

Is PHP a better choice for larger & complex projects?

php application development
Over the last few years, PHP has turned out to be one of the most popular scripting languages and its popularity seems to increase all the time. The principle reason behind its popularity is the fact the language is extremely easy to be picked up and can be used to design as well as develop customized web pages. This ideally implies that by opting for PHP as the principle implementation language, a user can have the liberty of building a web page that is dynamic, rather quickly as well as easily.

However, when it comes to dealing with larger projects, it is highly imperative to take certain measures to make PHP development an effective tool for larger as well as more complex projects.

The measure includes:

  • Separating the business logic from the presentation itself
  • Taking the help of individual developer(s) instead of a development team
  • Taking Special care of those areas where the initial simplicity of PHP can make things too much complicated for you

Though PHP at times can create a lot of issues in the case of bigger projects, taking special care in these three aspects can make the scripting language a handy one.

Separating the business logic from the presentation itself
The websites that are designed nowadays are scripted in such a way their reaction time is minimal when it comes to meeting the changing demands of the market. From the point of view of the developers, this means that they need to alter the contents of the website along with its looks in a seamless way and with minimal effort. This can be done by separating the presentation (which means the site's aesthetic look) from the very logic of the business (which means the activity of the site or what the site is expected to do).

This type of separation will provide an opportunity of engaging two separate development teams – one team, taking up the responsibility of setting up the business logic and the other team, taking up the responsibility of designing. As very few programmers are equally competent in visual designing, this clearly gives a significant edge over the competitors. This is more apparent in case of development of bigger as well as more complex projects with the help of PHP.

Now, let us see the other ways in which any disadvantage that PHP carries with it, can be negated. The principle objective of PHP is combining the HTML that will create the main get up or the look of the site along with the logic that is used to carry out the business. The codes develop the contents of the site, that can easily be derived from a database. Even developers who are not that experienced find this easy to deal with and this makes PHP such an easy language to understand. This makes all the difference even during bigger or more complex projects.

To make sure you can make the most of PHP during development of larger and more complex project, the following checklists should be maintained.

  • The amount of control that needs to be there over deployment platform.
  • The number of people who will be working on the particular site – at present as well as in the future.
  • The size of the site needs to be ascertained in advance and the number of pages needs to be determined alongwith.
  • The life cycle of the page or in other words, how long the page is expected to last? This will determine the extent of changes that the page will undergo and depending upon that, the users can extend the PHP with a suitable templating system.
  • Also, take into account the extent of experience that the developers have, along with the complexity of the site as that will be determining the changes that the site will undergo.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to hire PHP developers for your web development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Best Frameworks in PHP for ERP Applications

outsource php development
The complex nature of business processes has made it a daunting challenge for developers to build robust ERP application rapidly. With more and more enterprises outsourcing business processes, the ERP application needs to consider the requirements of several distributed teams. But there are a number of frameworks in PHP that allows developers to build a variety of ERP application rapidly. Most of these frameworks support the model-view-controller (MVC) approach, while allowing programmers to optimize the app’s performance by structuring their code. If you are planning to build a robust ERP application rapidly, it is a good idea to know some of the best PHP frameworks that will complement your project requirements.

Five of the Best PHP Frameworks for ERP Applications

1) CodeIgniter
The robust framework comes with a set of advanced features that make it easier for programmers to rapidly build ERP applications. In addition to facilitating fast page loads, CodeIgniter further allows developers to avail brilliant documentation and assistance from a large community. The non-strict structural requirements, at the same time, make the PHP framework cost-efficient. You can learn and use CodeIgniter without putting any extra time and effort. Also, the online community forums and chat services will help you in clarifying your doubts and questions.

2) Zend
As the framework developed by makers of the PHP, Zend is used widely to build ERP and business applications. It also allows users to access loads of plugins and advanced features, along with optional free downloads. Unlike other PHP frameworks, Zend enables you to access a custom server. You can use the custom server to check the look, feel and performance of the application across multiple platforms, without additional configurations. However, Zend will require you to invest some funds initially. Also, you have to incur additional expenses to buy add ons from Zend. If you are ready to spend some money, Zend will help you in building robust and customized ERP applications quickly.

3) Yii
Yii is considered to be one of the most effective frameworks to develop social and business applications. It allows you to optimize the performance of the ERP application by availing features like SQL injection, input validation and several security tasks. The framework can further save your time by generating the base code automatically. Also, Yii, at present, is the fasted loading PHP framework in the market. However, you have to invest both time and efforts to learn the ins and outs of Yii. The lack of books and tutorials will further require you to avail the assistance of other PHP developers.

4) FuelPHP
FuelPHP comes with features found in major PHP frameworks. But it combines these features into an approach that is both fresh and distinct. You also have option to refer to active comprehensive and updated Fuel documentation, along with getting help from a large community. The PHP framework is further updated frequently to support new features. Like CodeIgniter, FuelPHP can also be learned without putting any extra time and effort. But you will find the code to be less compact in comparison to CodeIgniter. The framework allows you to optimize the ERP application’s performance by implementing your creative and innovative ideas.

5) Symfony
In comparison to other MVC frameworks, Symfony is much more customizable. You also have option to improve the ERP application’s performance by using different software components that are being used by the project already. Many developers also considered Symfony to be the complete framework to build ERP and business applications. You have option to determine the security level of the application simply by configuring the two writing folders required by Symfony.

While developing an ERP application, each PHP developer has option to choose from several frameworks. So you must evaluate different PHP frameworks according to the specific requirements of your project. However, you also need to keep track of the new and innovative frameworks being launched at frequent intervals. Expert php web development India teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

If you want to outsource php development services or if you would like to hire php developers from top php development companies in India, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.