Zend Developer Zone: Initial Release of Zend_Locale_UTF8
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The Zend Developer Zone has taken a look at the first release of the Zend_Locale_UTF8 component for the Zend Framework and some comments from it's lead developer, Andre Hoffmann.    Andre Hoffmann posted a blog entry today to talk about his work on Zend_Locale_UTF8: "I just released the first version of Zend_Locale_UTF8.It doesn't come with all functions nor with the best performance, but it shows how the current state of development is."    He also lists some of the things still missing from the component, including: unit tests, substr, strstr, PHP6 support, and mbstring support.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted both the Zend Weekly Summaries issues #323 and #324.   In #323, there's talk of OpenSSL integration, a CVS server change, and several PHP security discussions (a suggested read).   Issue #324 talks about runtime JIT proposals, debugging overloaded objects, more on PHP security, the release of PHP 5.2.1 RC3, and more "fine grained" control over allow_url_*   Be sure to keep up with the latest mailing list and community happenings through these great updates from Steph Fox.
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:Community News: PHP 5.2.1 ReleasedZend Developer Zone: Zend_Acl / Zend_Auth example scenarioJSLabs Blog:  5 tips for creating high performance web appsRob Allen's Blog: Modules (Zend Framework)Alexander Netkachev's Blog: How to use Zend Framework Controller/Action approach?DevShed: Using Abstract Factory Classes in PHP 5 to Work with Online FormsWebCheatSheet.com: Two New Tutorials - Database Export & Sending EmailIlia Alshanetsky's Blog: Month of PHP BugsWindows Skills Blog: Using SQLite as a database backend for a lightweight serverCommunity News: DreamStats "rootpath" File Inclusion Vulnerability IdentifiedPHP.net: PHP Manual UpdatesCommunity News: MySQL native driver for PHP - mysqlndAlexander Netkachev's Blog: Controller/Action versus Folder/PageSymfony Project: Online doc interface improvedFelix Geisendorfer's Blog: Making error handling for Model::save more beautiful in CakePHP
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As posted over on the Zend Developer Zone, there's a walk-through that's been posted for the just-released version of Zend's editor - Zend Studio 5.5.   Earlier this month, I posted the release announcement for Zend Studio 5.5. Today, I got an email from my friend Avigail pointing me to a new web cast recorded by Yossi Leon the Product Manager, Zender, and all around nice guy has released a web cast walk through of some of the new features in this latest release.   The webcast shows off features like the Java code completion, Zend Framework code completion and integration functionality, and Zend Platform integration. If you've been looking around for a new IDE to work up code in, give the demo a look and see what you think.
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According to the Zend Developer Zone, the Zend Framework is going to the even more powerful in the future with the inclusion of command line functionality.   So, without further adieu, it is my pleasure to announce that Zend Framework 1.5 will include a robust, powerful, and- yes- 15-minute-demo-enabled command line interface for code generation!   They've set up a default structure (that's "recommended") but doesn't have to be strictly adhered to. They know how most developers have structured their applications and made it accordingly. There's three proposals in the group - the Zend_Console, Zend_Build component and the Zend_Build for Core.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast series with a focus this time on screen scraping (as recorded by Matthew Turland).   Matt has been building PHP applications since 2002. He joined the ranks of PHP-Oracle developers in 2006 when he became a programmer for METHODS Technology Solutions. He contributes to open source projects such as the Zend and Forkr frameworks. [...] We are going to veer off the beaten path today as Matthew talks to us about Screen Scraping.   You can download the mp3 directly or you can  to get this and the most recent episodes.
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Edin Kadribasic has posted some benchmarks he's created from the Zend bench.php tool on the latest build he's created with the new version of Visual Studio from Microsoft.   Here is the comparison of running Zend/bench.php from the PHP source using VC++ 8.0 (Visual Studio 2005) and VC++ 6.0. The test was done on my Lenovo laptop with Celron M 1.6 GHz processor and 1.5 GB ram.   Overall, the differences are pretty minimal, but there are a few places that stand out and have more of a variance than the others (like the 12% difference in the "simplecall" test). Check out the post for the full list of the benchmark results.
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The Zend Developer Zone has pointed out a new blog post from Yossi Leon about the upcoming release of the Zend Studio for Eclipse:   Zend Studio for Eclipse is just around the corner. Very soon we are planning to release the product after few beta cycles were we got thousands of feedbacks.   They've added their "new level of features" that they hope will make ZSfE one of the better development experiences out there - refactoring tools, code generation to make some of the basics and PHPUnit testing to make it simpler to debug your applications.   You can find out more about the software and its current release over on its page on the Zend website.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted an announcement about a new book from php|architect (authored by DevZone's own Cal Evans) - Guide to Programming with the Zend Framework.   This is a project I've been interested in since it's very beginning, mainly because I'm the author of this particular tome. [...] The php|architect web site was a bit more helpful giving a breakdown of the contents of the book and a useful quote.   The book covers topics on the framework like the parts of MVC, web services, authorization, exceptions and even some tutorials to help you get started (including a look at the brand new Zend_Layout class).
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted about some of their (Zend's) upcoming webcasts/webinars for the next two months:   On a regular basis, Zend hosts free Webinars on a variety of Zend and PHP related topics. They keep a lost of them over at the Zend site but occasionally, I like to list them here to make sure all DevZone readers are aware of them.   The list includes:   Zend Studio Neon Beta Overview (Oct 17) PHP4 to PHP5 Migration (Oct 24) Zend Framework Database Access (Oct 31) Improve your PHP Application's Search Capabilities with Lucene (Nov 7) Building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) with PHP and Zend Framework (Nov 14) PHP Security Basics (Nov 28)   Both the pages for each of the webinars and the Zend Developer Zone post have summaries of what each is about.
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Following on the heels of these comments from Alexander Netkachev, the Zend Developer Zone has posted the full project plan for the next release of the PHP IDE Zend is working on, version 0.7.   The plan of the 0.7 version is based on the initial SRS which is available here. On top of that SRS many bugs were submitted together with enhancement requests that were/will be included in the 0.7 release. You can find all PHP IDE open bugs here.   The announcement is broken up into three sections - the release deliverables, the release milestones, and the target operating environments - each with plenty of details to show you exactly what the team is working towards.
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On DevShed today, there's the second part in a two part series (another excerpt from the "Zend PHP Certification" from Zend) talking about getting the most out of your application and platform through some simple debugging/optimizing tools.   They start off with a look at debuggers - what they're for and a brief mention (high level) of how to use them. Next up is some simple suggestions for optimizing the performance of your application:  Hardware issues Web server issues Avoid overkill Zip it up Database optimizations  They also include a simple recommendation that all developers, looking for performance boosts or not should follow - "keep your code simple".
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Sebastian Bergmann posts about the tutorial he (and fellow developers Matthew O'Phinney and Mike Naberenzy) will be presenting at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo - a look at PHP Development Best Practices and Unit Testing.   From the official description:   PHP development by teams of developers introduces challenges beyond the mere coding of great algorithms. Agreements are needed about tools, specifications, architecture, design patterns, coding standards, testing, documentation, source code control, staging and deployment. This tutorial session aims to introduce developers to a set of best practices that will help them deliver applications fast and move them to deployment with confidence.   You can check out some of the other tutorials for the upcoming conference as scheduled here.
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According to this quick post on the Zend Developer Zone today, the Zend Framework project has a new leader to take the place of Jayson Maynard when he left.    After a difficult search, we have found the seasoned veteran we need to track, manage, and coordinate our ever growing group of contributors and Zend liaisons, and our lengthy list of components and sub-projects on our published roadmap for ZF 1.0, and beyond.   Fortunately, we were introduced to Bill Karwin. Bill is up to this challenge, having performed similar project organization duties at several companies, including Borland and Lutris Technologies. He is also committed to the open-source community, and is a member of the MySQL Guild.    Cal has some other nice things to say about Bill, including a compliment on Bill's grasp on the Zend Framework project.
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The latest weekly summary for the PHP mailing lists has been posted over on the Zend Developer Zone. This week, discussions included:  Sandboxed semaphores Focus on *printf [continued] PHP 5.2.1 RC2 and PHP 4.4.5 RC1 It's all in the HEAD  Descriptions of each of the headings are provided, including code and a "short version" for those on the run.   Be sure to check back each week for a new summary.
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John Coggeshall has blogged about a method he's worked up for compiling extensions into the Zend Core software.   While Core does ship with a large list of extensions (which are all QA'd and supported by Zend) there are times when you would like to include non-official extensions from PECL for various reasons.   He breaks it down into a few simple steps - download, "phpize" the extension, compile it and add the extension to the php.ini. He details the second step of the process (the phpize) because of some of the differences there are between doing it for a normal PHP install and a Zend Core install.   He also provides directions for an exception to the rule - compiling a PDO driver for your ZC install. You'll have to trick the Zend Core installation into using the right files, though. Full instructions are included.
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As mentioned in this post on the Zend Developer Zone, the Zend/IBM collaboration group have released a Web 2.0 Starter Toolkit:   It offers a great start to reducing the coding yet helps you produce cool applications using Ajax, ATOM feeds and REST Web Services. It is a great on-ramp to get you working with Zend Core and IBM DB2 Express-C and Rich Internet Applications (RIA). This toolkit will also work with Zend Core for IBM, check out the FAQ. This is an excellent use case for DB2 pureXML.   It makes things simple like making ATOM feeds from a data in a pureXML database, making web services as simple as a point and click operation and check out the usage of your database via an Ajaxed interface.   Check out the project's website for more information. Currently, the project requires Windows (either XP or Server 2003).