When you’re creating a new project with the Zend Framework, unlike other frameworks, you need to do more legwork. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can sure slow you down when you’re trying to plough through a project.
I really enjoy using it, as it has a very well structured approach – and I like structure – it clearly lays out a file-system structure for modules, controllers, actions, forms, models and so on. It has good, but basic, tooling, allowing for modest project initialisation. But despite all this, it still requires a healthy investment on our part to get a proper foundation in place to use it productively.
In a recent project I encountered this situation and felt that I mustn’t be the only one to do so. As I plan to keep using Zend Framework I want to work around this situation and get as much productivity out of it as possible right from the get go. But how to do this?
Bootstrapping
Well the primary focus for me is bootstrapping. It provides the majority of the core services that every project needs, from routing, data source connections, authentication, authorisation, navigation, caching and so on. So it stands to reason that it’s a good place to start. So I want to cover what should go in to a good working bootstrap.