The framework is a re-usable design platform for software systems, which provides support for code libraries and various scripting languages. There are frameworks for PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby and many other scripting languages. All software frameworks are built with the idea of re-usability of the code and provide tools that help programmers develop and mount together the different components of a software project. Various parts of the framework may be exposed through an API.
From my perspective, a framework does several things:
- it makes it easier to work with complex technologies
- it ties together a bunch of discrete objects/components into something more useful
- it forces the team (or just me) to implement code in a way that promotes consistent coding, fewer bugs, and more flexible applications
- everyone can easily test and debug the code, even code that they didn't write
