Show HN: Dumbo – Hono inspired framework for PHP
76 points by notrab 7 months ago | 65 commentsIn true JavaScript fashion, I decided to learn PHP again by building a framework to put all the pieces together in my brain.
I absolutely love Hono.dev, and decided to base the PHP framework on that. Dumbo isn't intended to compete with Laravel, Symphony or Slim, if anything, it's something people can use in production, but also contribute to and be used as a learning resource for others.
- jtreminio 7 months agoYou're requiring PHP 8.3 but not using some of the most powerful tools in 7+: strict types.
``` /* @var array<string, mixed> Variables stored in the context */ private $variables = []; ```
This should be typed as `array` (heck, I'd argue ArrayObject instead) and all your classes should have `declare(strict_types=1);` at the top.
Your `Dumbo\Helpers` classes are basically static mine traps that you are unable to mock in unit tests. Why does `BasicAuth` expose a single static method but then calls a bunch of other static methods? What ends up happening in any class that uses any of your `Dumbo\Helpers` classes will always run whatever code is defined in these helper classes.
I'm unsure where the bootstrapping process begins. What file does your webserver need to call to handle a new request? I am hoping it is within a root-level directory and not at the root level itself. In other words, `/public/index.php` vs `/index.php`. Your quickstart in README.MD makes it pretty clear that you expect the latter, which is highly unsafe. See any number of poorly configured webservers that stop processing PHP for any reason but now show your site's full contents to anyone passing by.
I would strongly argue against _any_ magic in your framework. Specifically, routes: they should be explicitly defined. I still work with a legacy Symfony 1 framework project and I can't tell you how much I detest magic routing. For a modern example see how Symfony 2+ requires explicit route definition. Heck, how it requires explicit everything because magic should be left to magicians.
Your framework seems like it can only handle `application/json` and `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` requests, but not `multipart/form-data`.
Take these as positive criticisms of your work. It's "fine". I wouldn't use it, I would actively recommend against using it, but I would actively recommend against using anything that's not Symfony (or Laravel if I were drunk). I do not think your project is at the "Show HN" level - it is still far too under-developed.
- notrab 7 months agoAppreciate the feedback, I'll work on it. I have lots to learn it seems!
- thinkingtoilet 7 months agoOut of curiosity, what do you dislike so much about Laravel?
- jtreminio 7 months ago1) *magic* 2) Its ORM of choice uses ActiveRecord pattern which I find to be hideous. DataMapper is far superior 3) Its weird facade patterns is terrible
I can (and have!) gone in-depth into my misgivings with Laravel, but it is fine for most projects and teams. It has elevated the average codebase quality throughout the PHP community and introduced many engineers to what PHP can do. Its creator and community have been a large net-positive to PHP as a whole.
I still prefer Symfony:
1) explicit 2) DataMapper ORM by default 3) What I am used to
- mjrpes 7 months agoWhat do you think of Slim Framework as far as best practices for modern PHP in a micro framework (which is similar to OP's Dumbo)? Are there any other micro frameworks you recommend?
- gregoriol 7 months agoSymfony has a huge lot of magic (text/non-typed config files, factory/abstract bloats, ...), and even dark magic (compilation passes, ...), but it's better than Laravel in many ways indeed.
A simpler framework with modern techniques would be great though.
- dotancohen 7 months agoWe are in agreement about Laravel's ORM, but I disagree about the magic. Laravel's "magic" is just convention over configuration, and most things can be configured as well.
- thinkingtoilet 7 months agoMakes sense. I agree on the ORM. I actively don't use Eloquent when I use Laravel. It's fine for simple actions but I find it can get in the way as the project grows more complex. Thanks for sharing.
- lofaszvanitt 7 months agoToo much angst about non standards and preferences. Everyone codes the way they feel comfortable and decides what to implement because the more mumbojumbo pattern magic included the more complexity you introduce to your codebase. And the development time skyrockets.
Just because someone wrote a book about patterns, it doesn't mean it's the high standard and the holy bible by any means. These people are mostly control freaks, who like to exert control on people and think their excrement is akin to a lump of gold.
And then there are the preachers - like you - who disseminate the bullshit these pattern monkeys rant day and night.
- mjrpes 7 months ago
- jtreminio 7 months ago
- 7 months ago
- notrab 7 months ago
- shikck200 7 months agoWe actually target a HUGE legacy PHP codebase (its over 16 years old, with over 1M LOC) with Haxe. I would not EVER write vanilla PHP for anything else than a toy website, because there is no amount of testing that makes it stable enough.
We still have a lots of legacy PHP, but its slowly being refactored to Haxe. With Haxe we get a really nice typesystem, and a "faster than Go" compiler. It has pushed our productivity thru the roof.
We still need to use external dependencies tho, as PHP lacks any concurrency in the core language, so we also have a Go API for fetching data concurrently, and also use it as a BI directional socket for the frontend and as a queue server.
Otherwise, the stack is pretty much PHP7 from top to bottom.
- gr4vityWall 7 months agoVery interesting to hear about the Haxe PHP target being used like that. How did you start introducing it to the codebase? Were there any devs familiar with Haxe in the company already?
- shikck200 7 months agoSee my above comment for a semi detailed version of how we do things.
- shikck200 7 months ago
- keb_ 7 months agoThis is really cool to hear as someone who used to experiment with Haxe for game development. Would love to read a case study.
- shikck200 7 months agoWe started small. And prototyped with just a single feature.
Basically we generate code in our src folder under a reserved namespace, and other PHP code can then use that code with imports. As we grow, we might want to split this into separate compilation units (we are not there yet, as the Haxe compiler is really fast!)
At the moment the generated PHP code is checked in source control, again we might want to have this done in CI, but it works kind of nicely at the moment.
The tricky bits are how to "speak" to PHP. Haxe is a really nice functional language (even its syntax is traditionally class based, but you can have module level fields in Haxe since 2020), so its pretty annoying to handle option types etc from the PHP side. We are still not decided on this part, and many APIs expose duplicate functions for some general task, like foo and foo_exn, and the one that ends with _exn throws instead of returning a variant (like option/maybe etc)
Also, its tricky to design where data is fetched from. We tend to keep the Haxe code as pure as possible, and only taking input and returning output (not doing any IO). We also write our own typings for externals, this has actually been really good for us, as we can observe easily what we actually use, and if we can remove some dependency that has some one feature we only use.
Overall, im amazed not more PHP devs look into Haxe as its basically a better version of what is TypeScript > JavaScript. Also there is no other compile to PHP language im aware of that ha the same robustness and features Haxe has.
- shikck200 7 months ago
- gr4vityWall 7 months ago
- crowcroft 7 months agoI don't see myself ever using anything other than Laravel, but love these kinds of projects just to see what new ideas they might spark for the wider PHP community. Also interested in https://tempestphp.com/
- endofreach 7 months agoWhile it's indeed too much boilerplate necessary for good DI, just the first paragraph sounds insane to me: "Tempest features a unique concept called discovery. Tempest will scan your code and find out what to do with it: from controller routes to event handlers, from console commands to dependency initializers; Tempest will detect everything without you having to write a single line of configuration or bootstrap code."
- racl101 7 months agoI was about to start looking for a PHP micro framework. I wish Lumen was still supported.
- leftnode 7 months agoSymfony 7.2 can work as a micro framework, believe it or not: https://symfony.com/blog/new-in-symfony-7-2-simpler-single-f...
- gregoriol 7 months agoThey say it "can" but it is not first class in their docs or minds, so it's mostly up to you to figure out how to do most of things then. It would be better to have an independent micro framework with a clear scope of what it can and cannot do compared to the full Symfony stack.
- gregoriol 7 months ago
- james2doyle 7 months agoCan't go wrong with Slim: https://www.slimframework.com/
But if you're looking for something more modern and interesting, then Hyperf looks pretty cool. They have a mini-framework version you can check out: https://github.com/hyperf/nano
It does require Swoole, but that is a lot easier to get your hands on these days
- crowcroft 7 months agoWhen you say micro framework, what are you looking for? If you're just looking for a routing library then something like Symfony Flex might be what you want.
I find when I start a project I pretty quickly want to add an ORM, models, and maybe some middleware, and then I'm at a point where I might as well just use Laravel because it's fast enough and I know my way around.
- notrab 7 months agoIs FuelPHP or CodeIgniter still going? Those were my two favourites back in the day before Laravel came on the scene.
- crowcroft 7 months agoI don't think Fuel is at all, and CodeIgniter is... but not really?
IMO Laravel is kind of the spiritual successor to CodeIgniter, although of course a lot has changed between V1 and V11
- crowcroft 7 months ago
- leftnode 7 months ago
- notrab 7 months agoThat looks awesome!
- endofreach 7 months ago
- dzonga 7 months agoI wish the market didn't determine the technologies we get to work with. because at times the market can be wrong due to incentives.
e.g the market was wrong on graphQL.
btw Hono is cool, but found the api surface area insufficient for my node.js usecases.
- no_wizard 7 months agoHow was the market objectively wrong on GraphQL?
I ask a a REST turned GraphQL advocate to be clear but criticisms I hear tend to be opinions or issues with specific implementations but not ones based on the technical shortcomings of the technology
- davzie 7 months agoI can't comment on all the shortcomings and this may be reflective on my lack of experience with different implementations, but doesn't using GraphQL basically just enable a tonne of unoptimised database queries to occur that, at scale, could cause some serious load issues?
- no_wizard 7 months agoGraphQL says nothing about databases at all. Resolvers can get resources from anything, they’re agnostic.
None of that is inherent to the technology but it’s a common folly among developers. This is an issue with REST too but it can be more obfuscated
- no_wizard 7 months ago
- bearjaws 7 months agoGraphQL has too many foot guns for your typical SMB to implement successfully, especially pivoting from REST. It requires you to architect your solution much further ahead than most companies have the capability to.
I prefer it over SOAP, but I think it's far too easy to ignore:
N+1 issues
Security (found that we had our entire schema open including internal data routes at my last job), also we had to refactor from patients being company -> patient to company -> pharmacy -> patient... that was fun
Overcomplicating resolvers
Not implementing pagination upfront
Dead end schema designs, since you need to plan much further ahead it really hurts when you mess it up. In REST you can make a V2 of a route and move on. Especially since many people ignore modules at first. Even large corporations get stuck with UserEntity_V2, updateUser_V2.
IMO if you are going "wow if only we had GraphQL" and your team only knows REST you are always better off improving your REST tooling and standards. For example, when adding a new entity/resource you can just plan to understand how your own teams intend to query for this data, rather than guessing with GraphQL or implementing every search pattern.
- no_wizard 7 months agoAll of these are developer issues and not issues with the technology. They aren’t inherent to GraphQL.
By your own admission it’s sloppy developer work that causes issues it’s not the tech.
REST APIs actually do have an inherent problem, which is they’re one call == one source. Everything has to be bespoke to the endpoint, where as GraphQL as a technology allows one to not have to do that.
Versioning APIs is a code smell. With GraphQL you can combine queries by using Fragments for example. You could also perform concurrent resolution with resolvers and merge data results if if it’s appropriate for the scenario to resolve a single query. There is far more flexibility in the model but you as a developer are 100% in charge of performance and such, no different than REST. GraphQL gives far more flexibility in finding a solution for any given scenario, where as REST is an extremely rigid 1 == 1 resource coupling.
As for pagination isn’t built into REST. Anything “standard” about that was bolted on and varies quite a lot. Where as GraphQL does address this[0] on an implementation reference level.
Regarding exposing schema, while I question if there is the security risk you're implying it to be (lots of organizations expose their GraphQL schemas, like Salesforce and GitHub) but never the less, any good implementation will have a single line option for turning it off. Apollo does (arguably the most popular of the implementations) but so does GraphQL Yoga and even implementations in other languages.
As far as developers go, the biggest mistake developers make is creating schema that is simply a clone of their database schema at the end of the day, and this is the absolute worst way to go about implementing GraphQL. Its explicit purpose is to have a middle layer that lets you express APIs for intended purpose, not to be coupled to your database schema
- no_wizard 7 months ago
- 7 months ago
- davzie 7 months ago
- endofreach 7 months ago"The market" = facebook. It shouldn't be a surprise.
- no_wizard 7 months ago
- cies 7 months agoI've went through a similar journey, with some PHP in the early days, then a lot of Merb/Rack/RoR experience. Though I'd not say PHP is back. I'd avoid it for new projects as there are --IMHO-- much better languages available for free.
What I really liked from webdevt in Ruby was Rack. https://github.com/rack/rack (gosh I prefer the simplicity of the old logo)
And I found a Rack-like architecture in "http4k" https://www.http4k.org
In a way Kotlin can be looked at as a "typed Ruby". Sure Ruby now has optional types, but I believe it's not something easily bolted on later. The whole lang + stdlib should be built in an idiomatic way. Changing the language a lot later usually creates a mess in the stdlib.
The framework http4k delivers is very similar Hono/Dumbo, but it has a Rack built in as well. Also, http4k is make by functional programming enthusiasts. So it clearly separates logic and data.
Small request: Please make Hono clickable in the README!
- basilgohar 7 months agoIf nothing else, I love the logo. A hyper-realistic take on the ElePHPhant [0].
- gagik_co 7 months agoThere is definitely a discussion like this under every repo at this point but I genuinely do not understand why people feel the need to have AI art for their GitHub projects. It’s subjective but it just looks tacky and cheap, as is nearly always case with AI art. Some online, non-AI logo generator that slaps a generic royalty free icon with a font would be miles better, or honestly even dropping it altogether and just having a header.
- notrab 7 months agoI think it looks cute
- notrab 7 months ago
- gagik_co 7 months ago
- campak 7 months agoSmall world! Congrats on getting up there on Hacker News, too!
- notrab 7 months agoThanks Campak!
- notrab 7 months ago
- wink 7 months agoWhat's your distinguishing point over Slim and Silex (rip) because from your example script I don't see anything different. I mean, how would it, (un?)fortunately PHP syntax doesn't let you play as much with DSLs as Ruby or other languages.
- notrab 7 months agoI guess that's still to figure out... it's mostly been an experiment to relearn PHP... I guess keeping a similar DX to Hono's context->X is where I was coming from originally.
- oldandboring 7 months agoThis is what I was thinking as well. From the README examples it looks like every other modern PHP micro framework.
- notrab 7 months ago100% like every other framework. I'm primarily a JS dev, so it's in my nature to create yet another framework...
But seriously, this has been a tool for me to relearn PHP, and those contributing so far have also been learning PHP. If it ends up just bein (and nothing more than) something helps me, as well as others learn more about PHP, it's a success.
- notrab 7 months ago
- notrab 7 months ago
- avinassh 7 months agoperfect. beautifully designed. I will try this for my next side project.
- notrab 7 months agoYay PHP! Let me know how you get on
- notrab 7 months ago
- honorable_judge 7 months agoFor a programming language mostly out of favor, the effort to get a framework right and find the right audience to use this over existing options will be tricky. Good luck!
- slifin 7 months agoReminded me of https://fatfreeframework.com/
- eterps 7 months agoAre there any frameworks other programming languages (besides this one) that are directly inspired by Hono?
- pftg 7 months agoYeah, I believe Sinatra https://sinatrarb.com/ or Padrino https://padrinorb.com/ inspired Hono. So you are back to Ruby ;)
- notrab 7 months agoSinatra is beautiful!
- notrab 7 months ago
- WORMS_EAT_WORMS 7 months agoHonestly beautifully designed. Really lives up to Hono name
- notrab 7 months agoHono is to credit for the design, really nice!
- notrab 7 months ago
- phplovesong 7 months ago[flagged]
- jtreminio 7 months agoYour whole comment history with regards to PHP reads like someone frustrated that the tool they've chosen to shit on is exactly the opposite of what they think it is but they don't want to admit it.
- bilekas 7 months agoThere is concurrency..
There is Unicode support
There is a proposal for generics https://wiki.php.net/rfc/generics
For me personally its not a deal-breaker, there are workarounds if needed.
but for your question, why not?
It's so frustrating to see people just suggesting the "Mainstream" without considering if OP even asked.
Edit : Unicode support is not native. So concede this one, but again not a deal breaker as a language IMO.
- that_guy_iain 7 months agoTo be fair, there is technically concurrency. But it’s not what you would really expect. But as someone pointed out to me 14 years ago, if you need concurrency in your web request you‘re probably doing something wrong.
There is some very impressive work going on to define how Generics will work in PHP. It’s a matter of when not if Generics come to PHP. I‘m expecting a new RFC for Generics to be created some point next year.
- that_guy_iain 7 months ago
- jtreminio 7 months ago
- ajith-joseph 7 months ago[flagged]
- notrab 7 months agoThanks!
1) When I started this, I thought could this be an HTMX-PHP framework. If you see the examples directory, I added a few HTMX examples early days. Maybe I can niche down on this...
2) If I'm honest, I don't know yet. I first started building the router, then I was told through some feedback that there's been a lot of research (rightly so) into this area and I would be better off implementing the FastRouter that's in Slim, so I switched to that...
As mentioned above, if I could make this framework fit with HTMX more, I could have a PHP framework that talks HTMX with less of the wiring up. I still need to figure this out.
3) I've avoided building an official site/docs for it, but I might have to. I had hoped the examples were a good source, but as more features were added, creating official docs site might have to be my next task.
PHP isn't yet part of my default stack, but I am trying to thanks to what I've been learning building Dumbo.
- notrab 7 months ago