Writing something from the ground-up for HTTP is hard enough as it is, which is why frameworks and PHP is nice, but for whatever reason whenever I start a new project, and keep in my mind that I do not come the school of Computer Science so a bulk of my server-side experience is by trial-and-error in PHP, I have a hard-time conceptualizing my application for HTTP.

Frameworks help, but they sometimes feel like rigid cheats for getting by. I guess what I wanna know is did you experience something similar when making the transition from writing short and simple programs for a local interpreter or compiler to writing applications that required some sort of network protocol like HTTP?

I don't think I'm having trouble seeing the "big picture" while building out application X, but sometimes I think my assumptions of HTTP and my application's hypothetical "big picture" are in conflict.