I like to keep abreast of changes in what is hip in the word of web development but, with countless thousands of developers plotting courses to the next big thing, it can be a challenge. Recently, I have been experimenting with CodeIgniter, a PHP framework that one of my colleagues has been using for a while now and which is an important part of the job description for the post we will be interviewing for in the next few weeks.
With the ecosystem of the web becoming increasingly hetrogenous, I suspect that frameworks are the way to go. I have already become dependent on jQuery as a way of leveraging the power of JavaScript and, while I have a more comprehensive array of PHP experience, I am inclined to feel that frameworks are still the way forward because they provide a way of letting the details of an increasingly diverse user population (from visitors with powerful computers and massively large display resolutions to those with limited data quotas and relatively tiny screens) access the clever bits that make information both readable and subject to manipulation.
As a starting project, I am recasting my personal finance application, which is only available from machines I personally own but, as I get the hang of it, my gut feeling is that I will increasingly use the CodeIgniter framework for intranet and internet projects at work, with the real beauty being that those using the systems can be happily ignorant of all the details even while the gap between concept and working system becomes reduced by the increasing power of the tools available.