Ed Finkler has put together what he calls the MicroPHP Manifesto, a call to arms for the PHP community to get "back to the basics" and focus more on things like good well-crafted code rather than extending out into "complex, verbose solutions."

The approach I've been taking lately is to start with as lightweight a foundation as possible, in the form of a "microframework." [...] For additional functionality, I pull in lightweight libraries that help me accomplish only the tasks I need. Clarity and brevity are my top considerations. My other big consideration is the commitment I make when I use code I didn't write.

He goes on to talk about difficulties finding lightweight libraries to suit his needs and gives some cloc benchmarks for the Symfony HttpKernel and the Slim and Epiphany microframeworks. The end of the post is the most important part - the manifesto itself...one he hopes will ring true with the development community. It includes things like:

• "I am a PHP developer. I am not a Zend Framework or Symfony or CakePHP developer."
• "I like building small things with simple purposes."
• "I need to justify every piece of code I add to a project."
• "I want to write code that's easily understood."

For more read the full post over on his blog.