What aspects should I be wary of when choosing a web development framework?

Question

I am a relatively new to the world of software development and I've used the Ruby on Rails framework to develop relatively simple applications before. I know that frameworks can be extremely useful in terms of getting applications up and running quite quickly.

However I also know about the well documented problems that Rails had in terms scalability, and I was wondering if there were any other factors that I should be wary of before deciding to use a web frameworks in general aside from scalability, particularly when designing non-trivial business applications.

Answer 1

First and foremost, I would look for a framework that

• has an active, helpful community
• is well-documented
• is written in a way you understand
• has a history of responding quickly to bugs in general and security problems in particular

It is important that you understand what the framework does. While a framework helps you to avoid boilerplate code and also often gives you a hand up with structuring your application, like any abstraction layer, you still need to understand how it works and what that means for your application (in regards to structure, performance, security...). So look for a framework you feel comfortable with and that does not look like lots of voodoo magic to you.