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www.it-ebooks.infoC H A P T E R 24• • •Introducing the Zend FrameworkEven at this likely early stage of your web development career, chances are you’re already attempting tosketch out the features of a long-desired custom website. An e-commerce store, perhaps? An onlinecommunity forum devoted to stamp collecting? Or maybe something a tad less interesting butnonetheless practical, such as a corporate intranet? Regardless of the purpose, you should always striveto use sound development practices. Using such de facto best practices has become so important inrecent years that several groups of developers have banded together to produce a variety of webframeworks, each of which serves to help others develop web applications in a manner that’s efficient,rapid, and representative of sound development principles.This chapter’s purpose is threefold. First, I’ll introduce the Model-View-Controller (MVC) designpattern, which provides developers with a well-organized approach to building websites. Second, I’llintroduce several of the most popular PHP-driven frameworks, each of which allows you to takeadvantage of MVC, in addition to a variety of other time-saving features such as database and webservice integration. Finally, I’ll introduce the Zend Framework, which is rapidly becoming the mostpopular of these framework solutions despite being the newest of the bunch.Introducing MVCSuppose you’ve recently launched a new web site, only to find that it’s soon inundated with users. Eagerto extend this newfound success, the project begins to grow in ambition and complexity. You’ve evenbegun to hire a few talented staff members to help out with the design and development. The newlyhired designers immediately begin an overhaul of the site’s pages, many of which currently look like this: