Zend Framework

In early 2006, the software company Zend Tech­no­lo­gies (now part of Rogue Wave Software) released a pre-alpha version of the PHP framework, Zend Framework, under the BSD licence. The founders of the Israeli company were two de­velopers, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, who had pre­vi­ously developed the script language, PHP, pro­grammed by Rasmus Lerdorf as part of their studies at the Israel Institute of Tech­no­logy along with other graduates. Zend Tech­no­lo­gies has continued to work on improving the open source language and has released a PHP in­ter­pret­er, known as Zend Engine. To date, the Zend Framework has been down­loaded over 15 million times. The current version 3 (which succeeded Zend Framework 2.0 in July 2016) isn’t com­pat­ible with the previous versions, but web ap­plic­a­tions and services can be created which are based on PHP 5.6 (or higher).

The object-ori­ent­ated Zend Framework is the perfect de­vel­op­ment platform for web ap­plic­a­tions thanks to its broad found­a­tion. The col­lec­tion of pro­fes­sion­al PHP packages, which have been in­teg­rated into the framework, is very simple and impresses even ex­per­i­enced de­velopers. Basic functions can be in­teg­rated quickly and with minimal pro­gram­ming effort, whereby the focus can be placed on im­ple­ment­ing features of your own ap­plic­a­tion. The framework uses the package ad­min­is­trat­or, Composer, the script-test en­vir­on­ment, PHPUnit, and Travis CI, a tool for con­tinu­ous in­teg­ra­tion, where GitHub projects can be built and published auto­mat­ic­ally. Zend tech­no­lo­gies has always been supported by the very active PHP community, which helps to develop and con­tinu­ously improve the open source framework. In addition, companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Adobe, who have part­ner­ships with Zend, offer the framework various in­ter­faces to their web services.

The standard Zend Framework contains over 60 packages, which are executed quickly using Composer and a simple line of code. If the in­stall­a­tion package is not included in your operating system’s package man­age­ment, you can find it on the official website. Al­tern­at­ively, you can download and use the framework packages in­di­vidu­ally on GitHub. Among other things, you can use the various com­pon­ents and classes to implement the following functions for your web project:

• Au­then­ti­fic­a­tion/user man­age­ment
• Database access (CRUD)
• E-mail system
• Search indexing
• Loc­al­isa­tion
• Caching
• Captcha
• MVC ar­chi­tec­ture

The great advantage of the Zend Framework is the fact that all com­pon­ents have been pro­grammed so that they are not dependent on others. Having this structure makes it possible to pick only the required modules and to compile a de­vel­op­ment platform according to your own taste. This is known as a 'glue' framework. So you’re equipped whether you need the powerful MVC ar­chi­tec­ture, a CRUD interface for database access, au­then­tic­a­tion options for different user groups, or the complete package. With the test framework PHPUnit, you can actively check the progress of the program and discover weak­nesses and mal­func­tions as early on as during the de­vel­op­ment process. The Zend framework is not only a very flexible ar­chi­tec­ture, but it can also be used in other PHP frame­works like CakePHP or Symfony.

The various com­pon­ents of the Zend Framework are based on PHP, making the framework the obvious choice for all pro­gram­mers who plan to work with this scripting language. The open source software can be used without needing to acquire a paid licence.

Hosting and operating a PHP web ap­plic­a­tion is also un­com­plic­ated, both by itself and with an external provider where PHP is part of the standard rep­er­toire. There is high level of dis­tri­bu­tion, numerous manuals, user forums, and other support pos­sib­il­it­ies via the helpful community. It is very notable how much community members and the early de­velopers who were involved from the start play a big part in further de­vel­op­ment of the Zend Engine and the Zend Framework. Since version 3, the Zend Framework supports the per­form­ance-ori­ent­ated PHP 7, which makes the de­vel­op­ment of even more powerful web ap­plic­a­tions possible. Compared to PHP 5.6, the official successor promises not only to double the speed, but also to optimise the memory re­quire­ments of your web project.

The different in­flu­ences on the de­vel­op­ment of PHP have not always been be­ne­fi­cial to the structure of the script language. In contrast to languages with a clear philo­sophy like Ruby, the ori­ent­a­tion of PHP has changed again and again. It was initially Perl, then later inspired by C, C++, and Java. Con­sequently making script language lack in uni­form­ity, according to many critics. In par­tic­u­lar, naming functions and arranging arguments is anything but self-ex­plan­at­ory. Therefore, pro­gram­mers need to be patient and get to know more about the open source language so they can use it correctly for their own web ap­plic­a­tion. Although the in­tro­duc­tion may appear re­l­at­ively easy, any further learning is rather sluggish due to the lack of clear concepts. The ar­chi­tec­ture of the Zend Framework is more of an obstacle, since the finished scripts save a lot of pro­gram­ming time and effort, but at the same time they make it harder for beginners to com­pre­hend.

Even though PHP has struc­tur­al weak­nesses that add com­plex­ity to the language at certain points, it still counts as one of the most effective server-side pro­gram­ming languages for web projects, as long as the user masters it correctly. Zend’s framework means it also provides ex­per­i­enced de­velopers with the best tool for a faster work flow. Important features can be im­ple­men­ted using the classes and com­pon­ents included in your own web ap­plic­a­tion as well as be adapted to your own needs. Numerous, revised com­pon­ents, which can be down­loaded ad­di­tion­ally to the framework, also increase the number of features possible.

As mentioned above, support is just as diverse as the pos­sib­il­it­ies offered by the Zend Framework: online manuals, tutorials, and webinars, are not only provided on the official website, but also from members of the Zend community. In addition, there are several mailing lists, IRC channels, and forums in different languages. If you want to learn how the web ap­plic­a­tion ar­chi­tec­ture actually works, there’s enough material available to you – just as is the case with the un­der­ly­ing script language, PHP. The framework’s technical support is also im­press­ive: Zend is re­spons­ible for the entire de­vel­op­ment process of in­di­vidu­al com­pon­ents and offers support for three years for the larger releases. During this period, the company regularly releases minor updates that resolve critical errors and security issues.

If you discover bugs and security issues in the Zend Framework, you can report them via GitHub Report or by sending an e-mail.

With Zend Framework 3 and the im­ple­men­ted support of PHP 7, the Zend developer team has made a crucial step forward and has given the ap­plic­a­tion ar­chi­tec­ture a decent per­form­ance upgrade, which is also available for older PHP 5 projects. To date, the speed of the developed ap­plic­a­tions had often been cri­ti­cised, but this is no longer a problem. However, using the complete framework still has two decisive dis­ad­vant­ages. Firstly, the framework isn’t suitable for realising smaller projects due to its complex structure. Secondly, using the framework and PHP as a pro­gram­ming basis means that getting ac­quain­ted isn’t par­tic­u­larly easy. You should not un­der­es­tim­ate the time required to learn the ar­chi­tec­ture and the in­di­vidu­al com­pon­ents. Added to this, is the fact that the framework does not have its own test en­vir­on­ment and is therefore dependent on the external PHPUnit.

The range of features is rep­res­ent­at­ive of how versatile the web ap­plic­a­tion framework is. In the long run, the effort you put in at the beginning is very likely to pay off since you can’t start at zero with pro­gram­ming, but rather you can rely on ready-made designs. You only have to program a small part of your ap­plic­a­tion yourself. Thanks to the MVC module, sep­ar­at­ing the user interface (GUI) and business logic (the actual pro­gram­ming) isn’t a problem at all, which is a great advantage for web projects with regular design ad­just­ments. The biggest plus of the Zend Framework is, however, the excellent support provided by Zend Tech­no­lo­gies and the di­ver­si­fied community, which has given the framework its necessary stability and security over the past years.

This list of projects using the framework shows just how versatile the Zend Framework is. These include the shop systems, Magento and Shopware, the content man­age­ment system, Pimcore, the web analysis tool, Piwik, as well as the genealogy software, Webtrees. In the CMS and shop system sectors, the modular scheme of the framework takes effect. The good news is that there are numerous potential contacts you can get in touch with in case there’s a problem. In general, however, the smaller the web project, the less be­ne­fi­cial the planned web framework is. If you want to create a simple company page or a personal website, there are more efficient and resource-saving solutions. Your language pref­er­ence plays a crucial role since the Zend Framework always requires PHP – even if you port com­pon­ents into other frame­works. While de­velopers have to get used to the sim­pli­fic­a­tions and maybe even have to engage with them, it’s naturally twice as hard for beginners: on the one hand, you have to learn PHP and on the other hand, you have to un­der­stand the ready-made com­pon­ents. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use the framework properly and adapt it to your project.

If you are planning to program a web ap­plic­a­tion based on PHP and want to write each in­di­vidu­al line of code yourself, you don’t need the Zend Framework for this. If, on the one hand, you are looking for time-saving support during the de­vel­op­ment process, it’s worth taking a look at the Zend de­vel­op­ment platform. With this, you can realise your web project using ready-made PHP packages without having to write the entire code from scratch. You’re free to choose the operating system and web server since PHP is supported as an es­tab­lished scripting language by all modern platforms and software.

Since version 3 the Zend Framework has supported PHP 7, which gives ap­plic­a­tions an ad­di­tion­al boost of speed if they were created with the web ap­plic­a­tion framework. You’re in good hands if you have any questions or problems since the large community offers support for the scripting language as well as the framework. However, since the framework is becoming more popular, criminals take advantage of this fact and search for vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies in the Zend Framework and in ap­plic­a­tions developed with it. The help offered by these com­munit­ies enables you to write clean and secure code and therefore prevent potential attacks. In addition, all framework users can report any vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies they’ve detected so that they are fixed at the next possible op­por­tun­ity.