I agree. Rasmus even says "Any script based language is simply not fast enough". And frameworks are going to slow you down as well. But, when you compare how many real high traffic sites there are on the internet to how many low to medium traffic sites there are, you can clearly see that there is a place for PHP frameworks. Maybe not at the most elite levels, but definitely a big place. I think of PHP as the Toyota of web application languages (especially apt in light of Toyota's recent history)

But we are not comparing PHP to Zope or Linux to Open BSD. We are comparing a solid, mature framework, built and maintained by professionals, used on hundreds or thousands of sites, with a public bug reporting system to an ad hoc collection of code written by one person so your analogy doesn't hold.

So I just want to make sure I have this right:

less worried != more confident Ok. I will make sure to be more confident that my applications are secure, while still maintaining the same level of worry that they may be insecure.

You were responding to another poster who, while discussing the comparative advantages of using a framework built by someone else vs building your own, indicated that an advantage of using other's frameworks is that you are not reinventing the wheel. You said that the development of many different frameworks is an example of reinventing the wheel. I merely pointed out that if you are using a framework created by someone else, you are taking advantage of their efforts, and, by definition, not reinventing the wheel. I cant help but think that most of the people dissing pre-built web application frameworks are not people employed in a job where they need to build web applications in a production environment.

Well, as with any other task, if you have qualified people assisting you, you don't have to worry as much about the task being completed successfully.

You could argue that the people creating these frameworks are reinventing the wheel.

The point is, when you create your own framework YOU are reinventing the wheel. I would rather take advantage of solid code (since I use zend framework, I have no way of knowing if CI has solid code or not) written by someone else than to be spending my time writing code that is available freely, and is probably written better and more robust than I could manage, at least without many iterations of refactoring.

If you are using a popular framework, there are many people who can discover and fix vulnerabilities. If you write your own framework, you are responsible for handling that all yourself.

All these puns about steak rub
me the wrong way

Truly, you are correct. In fact, why would you rely on a programming language that keeps being changed every few months. I am writing my own programming language. If I'm the one writing it, I know it inside-out. If I use it, I update it myself. That's the only way to be sure. In fact, why would you rely on an operating system that keeps being changed every few months? I am writing my own operating system (written in the programming language I created of course). If I'm the one writing it, I know it inside out. If I use it, I update it myself. That's the only way to be sure. /sarcasm The reasons to use a framework are many - -You don't need to worry about re-inventing the wheel. -You don't need to worry as much about security vulnerabilities -You can take advantage of stable libraries that are written by others (many of whom may be better programmers than you) -In a group setting, you can find people that already know the codebase and don't need to spend time learning your framework I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons, but I don't have time.