http://codeigniter.com

CodeIgniter is the only PHP framework that boasts a very small footprint, designed for smaller PHP sites, possibly using shared-hosting providers and require the least amount of overhead to create full-featured PHP web applications.

Yii

http://www.yiiframework.com

Yii is a robust, modular PHP framework that is well-suited for developing large-scale Web applications. Yii comes standard with a full host of features, including MVC, ActiveRecord, caching, AJAX libraries, authentication and authorization components, input validation, Web services, and many more.

CakePHP

http://cakephp.org

CakePHP is a rapid application development PHP framework that provides an extensible architecture for developing, maintaining, and deploying PHP based web applications.

Zend

http://www.zend.com

Zend emphasizes flexible architecture and contains a host of addons, such as Zend Server, Zend Studio, and Zend Platform

Symfony

http://www.symfony-project.org

Symfony advertises itself as a framework for enterprise applications. The framework seeks to provide a high degree of control over the configuration: from directory structure to external libraries, almost all parameters can be customized. Symfony is also bundled with a host of tools for testing, debugging and documentting a web application.

Model-View-Controller (MVC)

Most PHP frameworks are based on the design pattern known as Model-View-Controller (MVC). This design pattern uses object oriented code to break a web application into modular pieces. The model handles the database portion of the application. The controller provides business logic. The view controls the actual HTML pages being rendered. On reason for using a PHP framework that follows MVC is that it creates cleaner, more modular code. It is much easier to make changes such as switching to a different database system when all the code of a component is in its own module. Without a PHP framework, it is easy for code to become disorganized or convoluted. There are so many ways to do the same task in PHP. Using a PHP framework helps provide a single way to handle many common tasks and that results in much cleaner code and easier maintenance.

Separate PHP from HTML

Speaking of maintenance, have you ever had to change a database connection string in some PHP code? If so, you may have had to look through and edit multiple files. Using a PHP framework enforces modular code which makes these types of maintenance tasks simple.

Web development has become much more complicated. Not too long ago, a web designer designed the graphics, wrote the HTML and developed an entire web site. Now web applications are made by teams of people with various skills. PHP frameworks that use MVC make this process much easier. A web designer can maintain the HTML templates without needing to know a lot of PHP or database code. Likewise, a database specialist can optimize queries in one place. Using a PHP framework makes collaborative web development far easier.

User-friendly URL Namespaces

Another reason you should use a PHP framework for your development, is that frameworks provide user-friendly URL namespaces. Most PHP frameworks utilize a routing or dispatcher class that maps URLs to classes and methods. This way you can avoid unwieldy URLs that include query strings. An added benefit of this is that your URLs will be more search engine friendly and you can add keywords to your URLs for some basic search engine optimization.

Rapid Development

The greatest benefit of using a PHP framework is the ability to rapidly develop web applications. A PHP framework will make your development time much more efficient. The framework already provides so many of the basic elements of a web application such as an interface to the database, sessions, URL mapping and more. By having these items already developed and tested, writing a new web application is greatly simplified. You may be surprised just how much faster using a PHP framework can be.

KONY 2012 is the massively viral YouTube video, directed and narrated by director Jason Russell who founded Invisible Children, that shines the spotlight on Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who has been abducting children and turning them into soldiers and sex slaves. In the space of a few days, the video has become an international sensation, garnering almost 70 million views on YouTube and even triggering a response from the Ugandan government, which now plans to capture Kony. It has also drawn some criticism for potentially oversimplifying the issues, possibly encouraging “slacktivism” and turning Kony into a celebrity.

The panel’s assembled documentarians, though, chose to address the effectiveness of KONY 2012 as social documentary.

Ontario community manager and panel moderator Meghan Warby said the documentary was stripping away the politics to get to the actual conflict in Uganda.

Dorothy Engelman, who currently runs GetINvolved.Ca in Canada, spent 20 years as a producer and documentary maker. She recognizes that KONY 2012 used celebrity because that’s how you reach everyday people.

“This film is everything we need to talk about,” said Engelman, adding that it does raise questions about “the filmmaker as a point of view or subject.” She also acknowledged the backlash and believes part of it is because the filmmaker’s goal is to bring about change.

“So when you get this kind of half-a-billion dollars-worth of earned media you have to be able to be transparent.” She then quoted a favorite saying, “Transparent means you’re naked and when you’re naked, you better be buff.” In other words, you have to be ready to withstand the scrutiny. By Engelman’s measure, the Invisible Children Foundation, and its founder Russell, has been offering an answer for virtually every question.

Rob Dyer who makes online videos for his Canadian-based SkateforCancer cancer awareness organization, thinks KONY 2012 achieved its goal. “What was the purpose?” said Dyer, “The purpose was to make Kony famous. I think it served their goal. What happens now, we don’t know.”

Dyer, however, thinks, there’s a larger achievement here. “Now 13-25 year olds around the world are at least talking about it [strife in Uganda]. That’s the most important thing to come out of that film.”

The documentarians noticed something else interesting about the online video: It breaks a commonly-accepted online video rule. KONY 2012 is nearly a half-hour long. When the panelists asked the audience how many had seen the film, many raised their hands. When they asked if the audience members had watched the entire video, an almost equal number raised their hands.

According to Engelman, the rule of thumb with online video is that people stop watching after two minutes. She said that rule “has been proven wrong this week.”

Source: Mashable