The original code base was in PHP. Very, very terrible proceduralish PHP. Since we have to continue to maintain the current system while we rewrite we can implement once and port that code (if necessary) to the new system with minimal effort.
Could I switch us to Rails? Yes, but I don't see the point. We're a PHP shop and in my professional opinion (having used both extensively) Symfony 2 is virtually on-par with something like Rails and switching at this stage of the game would be project suicide.
* If you're using Rails, and like it - stick with it.
* If you're using a good PHP framework like Symfony 2 or Zend Framework, and like it - stick with it.
You'll be just as productive and successful either way.
I agree. My primary languages are C# and PHP. My C# background heavily influences the way I write PHP code using heavy OOP principals and even type-safety (using instanceof) where needed.
I avoid using associative arrays as return objects when arrays of real objects (or type-safe collections of objects) are better suited.
So I think that you can write really nice code with PHP and a good framework. It's more about the software architecture than the language.
The original code base was in PHP. Very, very terrible proceduralish PHP. Since we have to continue to maintain the current system while we rewrite we can implement once and port that code (if necessary) to the new system with minimal effort.
Could I switch us to Rails? Yes, but I don't see the point. We're a PHP shop and in my professional opinion (having used both extensively) Symfony 2 is virtually on-par with something like Rails and switching at this stage of the game would be project suicide.
* If you're using Rails, and like it - stick with it.
* If you're using a good PHP framework like Symfony 2 or Zend Framework, and like it - stick with it.
You'll be just as productive and successful either way.