I just started programming again with PHP in April 09 after a five-year programming hiatus (don’t ask). PHP for the most part is stupid easy. Making simple applications are a piece of cake. However, I believe that the complex applications benefit tremendously from the Zend_Application MVC structure. I have been playing with Zend 1.8 and 1.9 since May and still have a ton to learn. I agree with you that it does appear to abstract things for abstractions sake. I remember reading through some of the terse documentation that an understanding of the underlying working of the MVC were unnecessary. Not true. The documentation is minimal at best. That leaves neophytes like myself the task of doing whatever it takes to learn what the heck is going on. I have had to read through code multiple times to see what was happening myself simply because the documentation was so terse. Thankfully, I can actually use the framework now and should have a few nice site to show employers in a few months. Given time, I think the framework will grow into a much easier-to-use and well-documented solution.

I would say that the lack of documentation and complexity of the Framework is actually an opportunity for the programmers willing to take the time and learn it. Zend Certified Engineer anyone?

At the moment (my position seems to be changing daily) I think the problem is that ZF is too abstract and complicated for what it’s trying to do.

I understand that abstraction is good and objects are a tried and true concept but sometimes it seems like there’s abstraction for abstractions sake. Some of the modules (gData for example) have over a hundred files which just makes working with it a complicated pain. From my high and might podium it seems wasteful and more an exercise in standards than practical implementation.

As a side note; I actually like having classes for my forms. I do think it’s ridiculous to have a class for EVERY element of a form but I do like having the form nonsense handled. Personally, I really like HTML_QuickForm over Zend_Form but Zend_Form is the new and shiny unkown while I’ve been working with HTML_QuickForm for years so I’m a little biased.