When are you ready to use PHP frameworks?

So i've been playing around with php the past month. I know how to create a basic dynamic webpage with PHP, i can apply CRUD to my web pages and i can create my own simple login-scripts.

Now i want to get into a PHP Framework, but i'm not sure if my php skills are good enough to start working with a framework. Or should i just play around more with standard php?

I'm afraid that when starting with a framework to early, you can only know a small part about it, and you don't understand completely what is happening behind the framework.

Can someone share their experience with this?

If you have learned basic Object Oriented Programming concepts (OOP) and understand them, you are ready. If you don't know what that means, then you are still probably writing procedural-only code. Frameworks will be using OOP so you will be off to a bad start if you can't even understand the syntax.

If you understand OOP, maybe start with [CodeIgniter](

[To see links please register here]

). It's pretty simple as far as frameworks go.

What you create with the framework might not be pretty, efficient, or the code of an experience programmer, but it will introduce you to dozens of new concepts and aspects of coding that you hadn't even thought about or knew existed. You will learn about the underlying architecture of an application, MVC, how to structure your code, etc.

I think it is beneficial to push yourself. In my experience, this is how you excel. Otherwise you stagnate, stuck with your old-fashioned, beginner knowledge.

You sound like you want to learn, and sound like you are capable of teaching yourself, so just dive in and see what you can do. Give it a few months and you will probably know CodeIgniter well and wonder how you ever built websites without frameworks of some kind.