Can the community really support English speakers?

geoffcaplan

Hi

I've just reviewed all the main PHP & Python frameworks, and Nette is looking like the best fit for our needs. I like the focus on security, and you offer the features and flexibility I am looking for without the complexity of Symfony, Zend or Flow3. I was about to go with Laravel, a lovely new framework, but then I discovered your 2.0 release and Nette is looking much more mature.

But I do have one major concern. You seem to have a lively community and a promising future. You have done a great job with translating the docs, and I'm finding that Google Translate does a surprisingly good job with the Extensions, Česká forums etc.

But clearly the community of native English speakers is still small, and the English forum is very quiet. We'll be building a serious ecommerce site with some innovative features, and it will be a tough project. If I go with Nette I'll be betting the future of our business on this community and I need to know that I'll get support if I run into problems. I'm experienced with PHP (I started with PHP3!) and would hope to contribute code back to the community in return.

I guess I'm just looking for reassurance that I'll get the help I'll need!

HosipLan

Hi! To be clear, only few people watch english forum regularly, but most of them are guru's. What concludes from this, is that we try the same with english speakers, but the reaction time is not that good like at czech part of the forum.

But what's saving the day is our jabber chat, there is always like 10–30 people and I practically live there :)

So when you get stuck with something, go ahead and ask, we are here to help, not 24/7, but we like to help ;) It would be owesome to have more projects on Nette Framework abroad. Ofcourse, the decision is on you.

Last edited by HosipLan (2012-02-25 09:59)

redhead

It's a shame that Czech forum is advising people to write in English here, but 99 % of them still doesn't do it. I check the English forum each time I check the Czech one, so if I know the solution to a problem you ask I'll be really glad to help (like most of the gurus here).

To join the jabber room, you can use the browser chat here (replace <username> with your own):

https://secure.jabbim.com/client/?r=nette@conf.netlab.cz&n=<username>

Or join to this room@server in your IM:

nette@conf.netlab.cz

Last edited by redhead (2012-02-25 11:26)

geoffcaplan

Thanks guys

This is very reassuring!

Next step is to get more deeply into the framework and check it will really meet our needs. This is a little like getting married – if we go with Nette, it will be a long-term relationship! So I need to choose the right “partner”…

petr.pavel

I understand your concerns. I also monitor the English forum every day and I see that people here do respond and provide solutions.

I used to work in CakePHP and let me tell you, Nette is so much better. The only problem is that its development is so fast that the docs lack behind. Sometimes quite seriously. On the other hand, getting new features so fast is nice :-) You just have to accept that you're going to spend quite some time in the forum.

geoffcaplan

petr.pavel wrote: I used to work in CakePHP and let me tell you, Nette is so much better.

There are so many PHP frameworks, but I feel the scene is not so healthy. At the top, Zend, Symfony and Flow3 are far too complicated for small-business projects. One big UK company recently moved from Symfony because it was too expensive to train their developers!

In the middle, Cake is bloated and out of date, CI has a PHP4 design, and Kohana is quite nice but doesn't use 5.3 features so you have issues like their complex directory structure.

Of the new 5.3 frameworks – Lithium has no docs and terrible G11n. It is years late with no community. Yii I simply don't like.

There is a great new micro-framework Laravel, and I was thinking of using that. But it is immature with many features missing, so I'd have to build a lot myself.

Nette seems to have hit the sweet-spot: fairly simple to understand and code, but still pretty powerful and flexible. And no lockin to stupid heavyweight ORMs.

The only problem is that its development is so fast that the docs lack behind. Sometimes quite seriously.

Yes – and although the code seems nice and clean, there are very few comments. Sometimes it is difficult to even understand what the class is for, as there is no explanation in the header.

But I do get the feeling that the community is very active, and with the chat and forum channels I'll get the help I need.

Last edited by geoffcaplan (2012-02-25 13:34)

grey

I think that there's a lot of english speakers here (well, english is a must in programming). It's just that the english forum is not as active as the czech one, so they don't have so much room to express themselves here :)

But if you ask something, I'm sure you'll get your answer.