ZF2 Forms in Beta5
Note: This article was originally published at phly, boy, phly
on 24 May 0800.
Forms are a nightmare for web development. They break the concept of separation of concerns:
- They have a display aspect (the actual HTML form)
- They have a validation aspect
- And the two mix, as you need to display validation error messages.
On top of that, the submitted data is often directly related to your domain models, causing more issues:
- Not all elements will have a 1:1 mapping to the domain model -- buttons, CSRF protection, CAPTCHAs, etc. usually are application-level concerns, but not domain issues.
- Names valid for your domain model may not be valid names for HTML entities.
Add to this that the validation logic may be re-usable outside of a forms context, and you've got a rather complex problem.