Using the Zend framework
According to Zend Framework Case Study available at https://www.zend.com/topics/Magento-CS.pdf, the Magento project chose to go with industry-standard PHP and the Zend framework because of the extremely simple, object-oriented, and flexible solution that encapsulates best practices and agile testing methodologies and that would result in a very rapid development of enterprise-grade web applications.
Using the Zend framework as the main pillar in the Magento project definitely includes the following advantages:
Magento contributors around the world know the Zend framework
There is great web services support to integrate Magento with different software solutions in order to share data
The MVC design pattern helps organize project development
With the Zend framework, Magento has great flexibility in creating and customizing modules, developing new features for the system, and maintaining the core code.
A basic understanding of Zend components could be interesting for developers...
