Building a penny auction site: use a php framework or not?

I'm about to start building a fully functional penny auction script (something like bidhere.com) in PHP/MySQL.

I know PHP preety good and have no trouble using the manual.

My question is: Should I learn some of the PHP frameworks and use one of them in completion of a project this sized?

Since you are dealing with money, using a framework might help you in the security front. A lot of the really good frameworks have been hardened against basic hacks (e.g. sql injections) so I would recommend using a framework.

If you write everything by yourself, you run the risk of being attacked and losing information (or worse, money).

Just my 2 cents (does that mean I get 2 free bids?!?)

Using a framework will mean you're not re-inventing the wheel.

It will also keep you abreast of new security patches, and you will have confidence that attacks like CSRF and XSS have had measures implemented against them.

They're by no means perfectly secure, however, it will remove a lot of worry from your mind, and the minds of your clients if you choose to sell/lease the script.

Frameworks are a good idea in general. Since the framework is usually native to the language, you are really just extending your reach into the language itself.

Frameworks keep you from having to write code that has already been thought about and implemented elsewhere. But also frameworks tend to offer many other benefits as well, such as MVC code organization, handy HTML Form/Url helpers (codeigniter), independent 3rd party modules (drupal), and a slew of easy to manage configurations.

Having access to ready-made code makes your job easier and allows you to be more graceful and efficient in your implementation.

That being said there is no preset rule that you have to use a framework, if you know what you are doing, you have a straight-forward scope/objective and the task at hand is not complex, then just using raw PHP would benefit in this case, especially due to the fact that different frameworks have differing learning curves.

Certainly a framework, but which one. Points to consider:

- If you are dealing with the backend operations, you better create backend separate from fronted. That's what Models are used for. You would need a framework which separates business logic from the presentation logic.

- If you will use lots of forms and user interactivity on the site, then you need to have PHP UI framework. That would help you not to worry about how you are going to submit forms and focus on functionality.

- If you are familiar with few of the frameworks, then stick with them. If you haven't used yet, then shop around. There are few general purpose ones which you have heard of, but then there are some you haven't heard of. Compare them and see which will get you from A to B within minimum time and effort.