Tessera is an extremely tiny PHP framework modeled after web.py, Sinatra, and Juno. It allows the developer to map URIs to class methods while keeping their code DRY, and separating application logic and presentation. Its feature set is small and strong: routes with named params (and regular expressions and splats!); view and layout logic.

Sometimes, I just have to work in PHP. I would love to use a new and different framework for every job, but that's just not possible. Tessera was created because I looked for a "minimal" PHP framework, but none of the frameworks I found fit my definition, and I think there are people out there who are looking for the same thing. Sure, some of the frameworks I found were small, like wephp and tkself, but they just weren't what I was looking for. Tessera gives you exactly what it says it will, and then gets out of your way.

Creating a working application in Tessera is more than easy. All that needs to happen is a superclassing of the Tessera class. Here's a fully functional application:

<?php
require 'tessera.php';

class BasicApp extends Tessera {
    function index() {
        echo "Deep down, deep down, dadi dadu dadu dadi dada";
    }
}

$basic = new BasicApp(array(
    '/' => 'index'
));

That's it. Save that as basic.php in your document root, and visit yourdomain.com/basic.php. That's an entire Tessera application that responds to a request to /, which gets mapped to the index method of BasicApp. If everything was done properly, you should be greeted with Eiffel 65 lyrics.

If you want to explore Tessera more, check out the project wiki.

© 2009 Justin Poliey