Odinjobs.com: PHP Experts: Why PHP Rocks
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The odinjobs website recently interviewed several PHPers in the community about their perspectives on PHP as a language and some of the resources they recommend. Among those on the list are Jeff Moore, Vidyut Luther, Matthew Turland and Richard Heyes.   PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), was introduced in 1998 by Andi Gutmans, Zeev Suraski and Rasmus Lerdorf (the original PHP/FI creator). In less than 10 years, there are over 20 million internet domains hosted on servers with PHP installed (source: Wiki). We will talk to our PHP experts to see why they think PHP rocks  Here's the questions they asked:  If you were to start afresh, would you learn PHP again? What do you think is the most important feature of the PHP language? What PHP forums would you recommend? What book would you recommend to a newbie? Name a programming language that you would like to learn? (if you had the time & resources, of course)   Check out the full article for their answers to these questions.
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On LinuxJournal today, there's a new article from Marco Tabini about the power of PHP as a multi-purpose language (and not just for web pages anymore).
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:PHPBuilder.com: Using Ajax with PHP to Create an Interactive Web PageJSLabs Blog:  Top 5 PHP ToolsLorenzo Alberton's Blog: Navigation Through Paragraphs in an ArticleChristopher Jones' Blog: Review: Easy Oracle PHPStoyan Stefanov's Blog: The PEAR bookScott Mattocks' Blog: Crisscott OnForce Client DesktopDevShed: Developing a Form Director ClassDevShed: Creating a Simple Threaded Discussion ForumLeendert Brouwer's Blog: Writing Secure Web Applications with PHPPower Creative Seeks Interactive Developer/Analyst (Louisville, KY)PHP Security Consortium: New Product Launch - PHPSecInfoMarket Day: At A Glance: ASP.net vs. PHPJob Posting: LAMP Developer (PHP/MySQL) (Nashville, TN)Community News: Symfony Turns OneBard Farstad's Blog: Optimizing PHP for Intel based Mac
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Raphael Stolt has posted a book review of one of Manning Publishing's PHP-related books, "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP".   Over the last few days I got the chance to skim through the upcoming Manning release "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP" by Dagfinn ReiersÃ¸l et al. The reviewed book is seperated into four main parts, covering lots of interesting topics in a good and fluent writing style.   Raphael outlines the book, mentioning the four parts the book is divided up into:  Basic PHP tools and concepts Developing applications via Test Driven Development Web presentation and user interfaces Object-oriented development including things like database abstraction  Raphael gives the book a positive rating and recommends it for anyone that has the basics down and is looking to extend their knowledge that much more.
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In a note submitted by the folks over at PHPClasses.org, there's details on a change in their book review section. It's no longer just limited to the reviewers the site picks out. Instead, anyone can submit a book review to the site on their choice of PHP book.   Writing books often does not pay enough to compensate the time and skill it takes. Many authors write one book and then move on working on paid consulting as it often pays much better. But writing good books also gets authors good reputation.   The general idea of this effort is to promote more good PHP books thus encouraging more authors out there to get up and get out and write their own quality resources.
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Sara Golemon has posted on her blog about some jobs at Yahoo! she's trying to fill within the company. You can view a full description in this post of her blog.  Senior PHP Engineer - This is the position I'm trying hardest to fill, it's about 80% PHP, 20% C/C++ and ALL about architecting one of THE busiest site on the internet. In fact, a cube just opened up right across the isle from me! You like me don't you? (Don't you? Please say yes, my ego can't take rejection).  She also lists another position possibly available.
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Tobias Schlitt has a last chance post on his blog today for those that might still want to attend the PHP Weekender event starting this Saturday (Oct 7th).    I just returned from vacation and realized, that the PHP Weekender (the free-of-charge workshop weekend for PHP enthusiasts, organized by the [http//phpugdo.de PHP Usergroup Dortmund]) has 90 verified, registered attendees so far.    This is really cool, we never expected such a huge number of signups! Anyway, the PHP Weekender starts on upcoming Saturday, October 7th. If you did not register, yet, you should take your heels and run to our website, since we will only accept registrations until tomorrow 12:00 CET.    There's stil time to get your name on the list, so head on over and sign up today before it's too late!
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Open source is wonderful. Everything is so open, warts and all. Roshan Naik complains about the state of PHP:
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Time for a little nostalgia today in this new post from Philip Olson looking back at a brief history of the PHP acronym - where it came from and how it evolved to mean "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".   While reminiscing what PHP was like back in the early early years, I stumbled upon a little historical nugget from the old website. Do you know what the acronym PHP stands for? Many of us do, or think we do. [...] But how was the definition chosen? For fun, here's a look back at the official vote that determined this new meaning way back in 1998. It might be worth mentioning that Rasmus, the father of PHP, did not vote for the eventual winner.   He also includes a few "notable quotes that could be taken out of context" from Rasmus Lerdorf concerning his opinions on the matter of the acronym's meaning as well as some other brief notes on the history of PHP and its name change.
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On his blog, Stuart Herbert has a quick tip showing how to mimic a feature of Ruby on Rails:   I'm still working on the next article in my series looking at PHP on servers, so in the mean time, check out this simple way to emulate Ruby's nice way of handling separate getter, setter and state query methods in PHP.   He admits his example isn't as elegant as the Ruby method, but it does get the job done. Code for the method is included in his post ready for cut and pasting.
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DevShed is getting back to basics with a new series it's started - a beginner's guide to programming with PHP. They've already posted part one:   PHP has been taking the web by storm because of its power and versatility. If you'd like to add PHP-based applications to your web site, keep reading. This series of articles will teach you the language from scratch.   They start with a mini-history of the language to get the budding developers out there warmed up. From there they move into some of the foundations of the language - what it was created for, the kind of functionality you'll find inside it and a first trip into variables (specifically strings).
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Felix Geisendorfer shares, in this new post to the ThinkingPHP blog, some of his experiences with writing his code using test driven development.   So far I've had tons of fun trying to create php code using test driven development. It caused my code to become a lot more structured/consistent because writing the tests shows you interfaces problems right away. This is because the process of writing the test forces you to think a lot more about *how* you want to use some class / piece of code vs. your traditional "how can I get task x done"-thinking.   He also points out another benefit - it makes refactoring the code even easier (so there's more of a likelyhood that you'll use it again and again). He talks specifics about a library that he's been working on and the processes he's gone through to make things work with the testing versus his normal development cycle.
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On the SitePoint PHP blog today, Kevin Yank shares his thoughts in the form of a list for what makes for "good" and "bad" PHP code.   When interviewing a PHP developer candidate for a job at SitePoint, there is one question that I almost always ask, because their answer tells me so much about the kind of programmer they are. Here's the question: "In your mind, what are the differences between good PHP code and bad PHP code?"   Among the items on the list for the good side are things like: structure, consistency, security, and portability. He gives a bit of example code that shows the three levels of "goodness" in a script (using $_GET variables).
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A new submission from Ophir Prusak came in this morning about a new article he has posted on his site - Understanding PHP - How did we get here?
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From Dotvoid.com, there's a new posting talking about the continued use of PHP4 by developers and hosting companies and how it's effecting the community as a whole.    It is true that the PHP 5 uptake has been slow. Many internet service providers as well as many developers are reluctant to switch. This is probably, as others have stated, a circular dependency.   As ISP:s are reluctant to upgrade the popular open source projects are hesitant to upgrade. I still think the wrong people are worried. Still PHP 5 is increasing it's share and finally the day will come when version 4 will be considered legacy. Hopefully before PHP 6 is here but not necessarily.    He continues on, talking about what PHP5 is really about (it's not just the objects!) and things that can help make it an easier sell to those still lagging in a PHP4 world - like the Zend Framework.
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This week, Cal Evans is reporting live from this year's php/db|works conference in Toronto. Since today is "Tutorial Day", the schedule is a little lighter, and he makes to time to catch Rob Richards' talk on PHP and Advanced XML and Web Services.    Rob Richards is the author of Pro PHP XML and Web Services. He literally wrote the book on using PHP and XML together. At php|works, he is leading a tutorial on using XML in web services using the DOM extension.    If you ever get a chance to hear Rob do a presentation, let me warn you, it is not for the faint of heart. As I learned last night when I sat down with Rob to record an interview, Rob likes to speak on leading edge and advanced topics. This tutorial is an excellent example of that philosophy.    Cal talks more about the content of the talk - its simplicity despite the complex topic, how much info is jammed in, and the fact that it's not just one giant pitch for Rob's book.
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Tobias Schlitt shares some of his toughts on one of his latest in a list of books to read - Exporing PHP.    Although I did not read it, yet, I'd like to recommend it to you, since I think to know the authors good enough to believe they write good books.   In short, "Exploring PHP" is a roundup about advanced PHP programming experiences, covering different topics like: Event driven programming in PHP, Generation of 3D graphics, Refactoring and Migration, PHP6.    From the little that he's looked into the book, he can already tell it's a good resource and is recommending it based on that and the authors it comes from.