Use of web application frameworks in the development of small applications

Abstract

With the emergence of modern software development methodologies and related web application frameworks, many developers started using them because of their advantages, such as faster development, enhanced security, availability of useful and standardized libraries, simpler organization of work in development teams and clearer structure of code thanks to the strict conventions and use of design patterns that encourage separation of domain logic, user interface and data processing model. However, because of perceived disadvantages of frameworks — complexity and overhead of framework code, learning curve, possible undetected security vulnerabilities, etc. — most developers choose to use them only for development of large and complex applications, while they develop small applications from scratch. In this paper we compare development process of two versions of the same application — first developed in pure PHP, and second developed using CodeIgniter web application framework. Based on results of the comparison, we argue that, contrary to the common practice, use of web application frameworks is justified in development of small applications.