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