Symfony2 (first) impressions

tldr: Symfony2 is a good 5.3 php mvc framework which is yet to gain dev buzz

I started using it around PR2/3, wanted to learn something new, had a side project for it, so gave it a try. The catchy & humble sentence “were standing on the shoulders of giants” on dev Symfony2 homepage (http://symfony-reloaded.org/, removed by now :(), which resembles the philosophy behind it, should add that those freaking giants were running at times in my case :) Here are my impressions in a Mind\Dump() manner:

• twig, like a lot its blocks/extensions. Overall is extendible & a solid template
  engine, would use it without Symfony2 as well
  


• asset management is nice, powerful filters
  


• once I got used to Services Container & Dependency Injection, it was much easier to develop with it (havent written a singleton since:)
  


• Doctrine2 based model layer , upvote
  


• powerful debugging features in Profiler yet you will need a php debugger, easier to see what happens under the hub
  


• form component: I gave it hell, implemented a multi page wizard form for a rather complicated object model (still need to finish validation tho), its insurance stuff so you can imagine. Once I figured out how it is meant to be used in complicated scenarios (sub-sub forms & request objects), I became a great fan of it.
  


• symfony-bootstrap should get more love / awareness
  


• if you are into Symfony2 on Debian/Ubuntu
  


• community & contributors are the strong side of the project, code lives on github which provides a healthy ecosystem for open source projects.
  


• Symfony2 console is handy for development / deployment / maintenance
  


• documentation / tutorials are improving lot lately. I got an interesting browser url shortcut while it was located under http://docs.symfony-reloaded.org/master/ it was simply “master”, Symfony2 teaches you to be humble :), it can beat Google Analytics shortcut tho...
  


• I learned a lot from FOS/UserBundle , Lichess , ForumBundle to name a few. These bundles can be as good as any cookbook / reference.
  


• if you used an mvc framework ever before there wont be big surprises
  

Symfony2 is a strong contender for “next generation php framework” tag. Will be interesting to see its bundles in 6 month from now when more developers adapt it . Would definitely use it in future projects.

p.s.Its good to see activity in php world that couldnt be made fun of on reddit/hackernews

Few thoughts on #elopocalypse

It was interesting to see how Nokia partnered with Microsoft few days ago on using Windows Phone 7 on their next generation smartphones instead of their homegrown (well almost as they partnered with Intel on it, but Maemo, its foundation, is theirs) MeeGo platform. There was instant community uprising (look at #elopocalypse & #feb11 tags on twitter). 1000+ Nokia devs hit the streets of Tampere (quite unusual behaviour for geeks)

Why is it a big deal?

Microsoft buys a potentially large market share for Windows Phone 7 by knocking out a potent competitor MeeGo. With this move Nokia degrades itself to pure hardware manufacturer (with a strong patent portfolio), giving up its Ovi store and other aspirations.
It will be rather cold out there for them (just look at competition Samsung, HTC, ZTE, LG to name a few), and we saw how successfully they coped with them earlier... I am sure Windows Phone 7 is a usable platform & Microsoft will do everything doable to make it even better to be able to catch up with Android. On the other hand MeeGo is a linux based OS where you could reuse the linux stack (like install a webserver on your phone if that is what you need), backed by excelent Qt, technically the most advanced stuff in mobile atm.

How miscommunicated by Steven Elop & his team

I mean seriously, you dont mention any words that can even be even associated with "disaster" to be able push trough a deal you made. I think he is simply not competent enough to lead a company level of Nokia, regardless of how good/bad the deal itself is.

Consequences

The price of Nokia shares went down by 13.97% instantly (almost 5B $). Guess it will be even harder to communicate to shareholders, really hope that Mr. Elop will prepare better this time. Nokia receives a yet undisclosed amount of cash from Microsoft measured in billions of USD. Microsoft has started seriously investing in mobile, and their war chest is not small. Nokia holds lot of patents in mobile arena, is still a strong brand so from Microsofts side perfect strategic partner.

Community?!

When Google released Android they did everything possible to attract 3rd party developers & make them adapt their platform & write apps for it (copy-paste idea from Apple). These developers are early adopters, show their phones & apps to friends, they blog about it etc. & the whole thing will get traction soon. So in short a valuable asset.

What Nokia did? They encouraged thousands of devs that MeeGo is the way to go, the guys invest serious time in it and suddenly burning platform & cold sea. Now if you invested & lost time on Nokia lie would you be early adopter in second round/any rounds. Thats just bad karma which I dont think Nokia needs.