Category Archives: propel

Symfony2 and me – let’s be friends – Part 2

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I have a running, blank symfony2 project now, with Propel instead of Doctrine – but no DB or bundle yet

Step 5: Gimme a bundle

I know there is this bundle generator, so let’s see it:
app/console generate:bundle
I chose my namespace and hit some [Return]s – and I’m good to go – WOW, yes it’s there! Not much in there, yet, but I’ll check later.

Step 6: The database

Nice so far! Now I’d like to connect to my exisitng database and use Propel’s magic database reverse-engineering
Thanks to composer I don’t have to deal with namespace and prefix configurations, so I can go to the db- connection settings directly
So I add the basic propel config with parameters (http://www.propelorm.org/cookbook/symfony2/working-with-symfony2.html) to my app/config.yml; then I need to set the paramters in parameters.yml
No, how can I check if the connection works? Why not run the reverse-engineering process directly?
app/console propel:reverse “No generated files” Hmmm, my connection might not work – but there is no error 🙁
SO, I manually check the permissions again (quickly dumping an adminer into the web dir) and YES, there is a problem with the permissions. SO I fix this, then run app/console propel:reverse again – and I have a file!!!

Step 7: Adjust the db schema

For the time being, the schema looks quite ok, so I’ll just move it from the generated-schemas folder to a more appropriate destination, being the Resources/config folder of my bundle.
To run propel:build now, I only need to add a namespace=”my\bundle\namespace” to the database tag of the xml, and it generates my models!

Enough preparational stuff, more coding next days!

Symfony2 and me – let’s be friends – Part 1

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My journey, starting a rewrite of an exisitng project from scratch with Symfony2

Step 1: Get the framework:

composer.phar create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition path
After giving my VM some more RAM (512MB wasn’t enough) it succeeded.

Step 2: Get rid of Doctrine and grab Propel

So I edit the composer.json file and delete the two doctrine lines (if someone other lib needs doctrine/common for annotations, they will solve the dependency, right?
Then add "propel/propel-bundle": "1.1.*" to the file instead, as stated on http://www.propelorm.org/cookbook/symfony2/working-with-symfony2.html
Then I run “composer.phar update” and it updates my monolog, removes doctrine and installs propel, its bundle and phing.
After that, however, the symfony cache update fails – if course, I removed Doctrine which is configured somewhere in the the Kernel.

So I remove the Doctrine line from app/AppKernel.php and all doctrine stuff from app/config/config.yml – and HOORAY, my app/console is green again

Step 3: Does it work?

My webserver is already configured to check for an app.php in the web subfolder, so it works – but first I’ll add my IP to app_dev.php so I can see all the debug beauty of Symfony2
Checking the Debug toolbar I notice Propel is missing – of course, I need to add it to the kernel where I kicked out Doctrine
So I add new Propel\PropelBundle\PropelBundle(), to app/AppKernel.php where I commented Doctrine befor, and app/console knows some good old Propel commands now.

Step 4: Freeze this into git

This is a good start, so I want to get this status into git. I’m surprised to see that there IS already a lot of git-information in the directory, being the symfony2 history.
Quick fix, rm -rf .git and git init again, here I come. On the plus side, I already have a nice .gitignore 😀
git add .; git commit -m “Fresh start”

My biased view on Doctrine vs Propel

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I’m getting old and I’m old fashioned.

I’m still using mysql, not mongoDB.

I’m using php and apache, not node.js, ruby, python or lighttpd, nginx or ….

And I’m using propel again (1.5), not doctrine. AND I’M LOVING IT!!

After #sfdaycng 2009, the presentations and talks there, I forced myself to giving Doctrine a try and really liked it then. A lot of reading through documentation in the beginning if you are new to it, but hey, that’s normal. However, today, even when writing a simple query, I still have to consult the docs. Why? The syntax seems not to be “my style” somehow, it won’t fit into my type of writing code.

But there is such a HUGE difference between Doctrine and Propel and Doctrine is SO MUCH BETTER

Is it? Do I care what’s inside if I’m only querying a database without using all possibilities? Remember sfLive 2010?

“Is Doctrine re-inventing propel” Hahaha LOL ROFL LMAO

At this years big symfony conference #sflive2010, in a Q&A session about Doctrine2, a poor guy obviously asked the question, that made it into a big running gag: “Are you trying to re-invent propel?”

I have to admit and regret that I was not there, but if you followed the #sflive2010 hashtag on twitter, it was not very long until this got tweeted over and over again. And everybody was making fun of it…

Sure, it is kind of funny to ask @jwage, (lead) developer of Doctrine that question… But hey? What’s really so funny about it?

While everybody in the audience laughed, it really would have been interesting to

a) see how many were trying to smirk, wondering whats so funny about that

b) know how many would have been able to give a good reply on that?

And with “good reply” I mean, explain the difference.

And with “difference” I mean, explain it beyond

  • “doctrine has the schema.yml and the model classes in a subfolder”
  • “propel uses two classes User and UserPeer, doctrine has User and UserTable”
  • “propel has a criteria object, doctrine a query object”

If you started with symfony 1.0 as a developer that did not work with frameworks like symfony before (like I did), everthing is “symfony” – may it be propel, phing, creole, PDO, … and getting into these differences was not really worth it in the first place if you wanted to get started with writing your first applications.

What I’m trying to say: I guess that a lot of symfony developers out there don’t know or care about “Doctrine” vs “Propel” – they use the default. And they call it “symfony”, thinking that it belongs to it. If they started with symfony <1.2, they’ll use propel, now they use doctrine – because it’s the default. You learn it, you use it, you stick to it.

And I sticked to propel throughout 1.2. And it was quite save for me getting along ignoring Doctrine. Just then, when I started using Doctrine after #sfdaycgn I found new things, new approaches, things I liked, things I had to learn and a lot of stuff I could not get the hang of.

So now, with propel 1.5 and the new Query objects, I gave it a try and was so excited, I decided to come back to Propel. Just because it “feels like home” and fits my personal style of thinking/coding.

And of course both ORMs have their features and behaviours and at #sfdaycng Doctrine had more of them and so on… But I also assume that a lot of those features are beyond most everyday developer’s needs

But Propel is dead

Oh no, it’s not!!!

With the new 1.5 it REALLY got amazingly easy to write your code, extend your Query Model and easy query creation. 1.6 is on it’s way and 2.0 was just recently announced to be based on Doctrine2, as a layer on top, providing the usability features… that’s something we will have to wait for, but I does sound very good.

But Benchmarks show that…

So what? I couldn’t care less. Why should I? I am not running sites that have gazillions of users with quadrubillions of tables and hexafoobarillions of rows – I don’t care if grabbing all posts with a certain topic and tag for a given user takes 111 ms or 132 ms. But I do care if I have to consult the docs for writing that query because I couldn’t remember the syntax or – on the other hand – my IDE (yeah, right, eclipse, I’m REALLY old fashioned) nearly automagically creates the query for me.

But what are you actually trying to say?

  • Most developers don’t need benchmarks to find their ORM – it’s about own style and preference (or customer specs, but thats another story)
  • Some symfony developers might not even have thought about giving “the other one” a try.
  • Personally, I get along with propel 1.5 better
  • I’m getting old

So, if you know Doctrine, give Propel 1.5 a try.

If you only use Propel, give Doctrine a try.

And if you still use Propel 1.4 – MAN!!! Get the 1.5!!!

Any comments appreciated, I really like to see what I’m missing

PS: I’m even more old fashioned: I’m using vi – not vim, but eclipse with the vi plugin. Why? REAL code completion! A wonderful thing with propel 1.5!