The Freedom Framework Bends to Your Will

On Sunday, I came up with the concept for the Freedom Framework, which consists of PHP Object Generator, EpiCode, and Smarty. I'd like to take some time and go into what I feel are some of its actual advantages, over other frameworks and over not using a framework at all.

First, you define your data model from the perspective of the database, rather than from the code. While you don't actually have to write any SQL, you're defining the fields and their types as if you're just creating a table. It adds to this with the Parent/Child/Sibling concept, but doesn't go as far as other frameworks which give you the impression that you're just creating and working with objects, and then try to generate the database from that (or make you write both the database and the models).

When you've done this, you edit the config file with your database's login information and run setup. It tests your database connectivity, creates the tables, and then runs some unit tests to make sure everything's working. At this point you have a set of classes that give you CRUD functionality for the tables you've defined.

And now, EpiCode comes in to define your controllers. This is the best part of the "framework." Since you define the controller classes yourself (rather than having them generated), you have a little extra freedom there. And since you actually define the routes table (rather than generating it or being stuck with a convention), you gain more control over the URLs that'll be used by your application. If it's a small application, you can use just one controller class, even if you have a bunch of differently named URLs pointing to its methods.

That freedom allows for excellent refactoring support. As I was feeling my way around the new "framework," I had only one controller class. After my methods started growing, I decided it would be best to separate them into multiple classes. This was the work of a few seconds (made easier since these are static methods); then I just had to update the routes table to point the URLs to the new classes and methods ... and voila! The project graduates from being a simple proof of concept to being a maintanable MVC application.

Even Smarty allows this sort of flexibility for the view. When I was putting together my proof of concept, I just threw the .html files into the root templates/ directory. As it grew, and I decided that this was more than just a tiny project, I created subdirectories underneath the templates/ directory and moved the .html files into them. (It's probably simplest to name these subdirectories in such a way that they match the URLs, but you don't HAVE to.)

The goal of the Freedom Framework is to minimize the things you're forced to do to work with it. There's no generated filesystem structure or controller classes; you can name them and structure them however you please. The framework grows with each project, starting out as just a little bit of glue and expanding into a well defined structure for your code (and since it's YOUR code, you get to define that structure). You don't have to know (or be told) the final structure before you start working on it.

The more I think about this "framework," the more I like it. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's the first I've found that doesn't inherently limit the way I want to work. The tool bends to my will. That's what makes it a good tool.