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In Case You Missed It... The Week of May 30, 2005
Elizabeth Naramore
This week we saw:
A "Mega-Release" Party for PEAR
Greg Beaver lets us know that three new releases are now available: Greg is obviously very excited about his releases, and with good reason. The PEAR base system is " a major milestone release for PEAR. In addition to several killer features, every single element of PEAR has a regression test, and so stability is much higher than any previous PEAR release, even with the alpha label." Also, the PEAR_PackageFileManager has incorporated PEAR_PackageFileManager2 into it. The Chiara_PEAR_Server also provides support for REST, among other changes. If you would like to read more about what these packages have to offer, check out his blog at http://greg.chiaraquartet.net/.
PHP Pumps up the Volume
Marcus Whitney, PHP author and speaker, has created the first all-PHP podcast, available at http://www.pro-php.com/. It lasts about 30 minutes and in this first "braindump" session, Marcus talks about the Loudblog software, his ideas for the future of the podcast, and his "wish list" of PHP professionals he would like to have on the show. In addition, he wants to hear from any business that has been breaking ground with PHP, and other new PHP ideas you might have for conversation starters. So if you've got something to say, or want to hear more about a PHP topic, give Marcus a shout.
PHP From the Command Line?
Yes, it's true, with the new interactive PHP console that will be introduced with the release of PHP 5.1. This is a very exciting feature that was announced at thinkphp.de - to read more about it, check out the blog entry by Johannes Schlueter: http://blog.thinkphp.de/archives/44-More-PHP-power-on-the-command-line.html#extended.
German PHP Online Training Available
Thinkphp.de has announced that they are now offering online PHP training in German, available at http://www.akademie.de/programmierung-administration/php/workshops/php-datenbank.html.
New SOAP version 0.9.0 Released
Still in beta, but this release provides several improvements and bugfixes. It is available at http://pear.php.net/package/SOAP.
Ilia Improves session_regenerate_id()
In a recent blog post, Ilia Alshanetsky writes about some interesting behaviors with the session_regenerate_id() function and what he's doing about that in PHP 5.1. You can read all about what the changes will be by visiting his blog:http://ilia.ws/.
The Google Web Accelerator Controversy Explained
Several interesting blog posts have touched on this subject, and it all boils down to the meanings of "SHOULD" versus "MUST" in the HTTP specs. The good folks at Google have created their accelerator with the assumption that everyone has been following the HTTP specs based on the interpretation that "should" = "must" and some developers are finding major problems with web apps when the accelerator is being used. Also, Google is practicing the art of "prefetching" or caching links to a page before they are called, which can also cause problems for developers, and web analytics professionals as well.
Chris Shiflett talks about the GWA in his blog: http://shiflett.org/archive/119, and Ilia Alshanetsky talks about it too: http://ilia.ws/archives/46-Google-Web-Accelerator-and-the-dangers-of-prefetching.html. (And it's not just PHP developers experiencing the problem: http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/google_web_accelerator_hey_not_so_fast_an_alert_for_web_app_designers.php.
Marco is Looking for Case Studies
Marco Tabini and php|architect is looking for PHP-related case studies, so if you're interested in submitting one, check out Marco's blog at http://blogs.phparch.com/mt/index.php or download the template directly by going to http://blogs.phparch.com/mt/index.php.
PHP/AJAX Webcast Still Available
If you were "in a meeting with the Bobs" and missed the PHP/AJAX Webcast from php|architect last week, have no fear, you can still relive the moment. Marco was kind enough to post links to those saved Webcasts in his blog: http://blogs.phparch.com/mt/index.php?p=49.
PHPDeveloper's Network is Dishing Out Awards
PHPDevNet has announced the first phase of the "PHPDevNet's Community Awards 2005." Currently, they are accepting suggestions for categories only, so save your personal nominations for the time being. Read the official announcement or make your suggestion at http://forums.devnetwork.net/.
WordPress Security Alert Announced (and Patched)
Boy those guys at WordPress are on top of things; they alerted Secunia to a potential security threat in their script (with cat_id) and have encouraged users to upgrade to 1.5.12. To download the newest version, if you haven't already, simply go to http://wordpress.org/download/.
Zend Enters the Magic Quadrant™
No, it's not an alternate universe, but an elite list of vendors which makes enterprise purchasing a little easier. Zend has made the "Visionary" quadrant based on "Completeness of Vision, Ability to Execute in EAS Market". In other words, they are kicking booty, and will be kicking booty far into the future. To see the press release in its entirety, visit Zend's website: http://www.zend.com/news/zendpr.php?id=99.
Zend's Accelerator is On Sale Now
For a limited time, you can purchase the yearly subscription to the Zend PHP5 Accelerator for $299. Click to shop: http://www.zend.com/store/products/zend-php5-accelerator/.
Enjoy an Improved PlanetPHP Experience
...courtesy of Sean Coates. In a recent blog post, Sean shows us how to control what blogs are shown, in case you aren't too hip on reading all the blogs from all the contributors. His script requires GreaseMonkey, so if you don't have that yet, you'd best get it. Read all about Sean's script by visiting his blog: http://blog.phpdoc.info/archives/15-Planet-PHP-Annoyances-and-a-solution!.html#extended.
PEAR/PECL releases
I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't include what's new at PEAR and PECL. Recent PEAR releases (other than the ones previously mentioned) include:
  • Cache - Framework for caching of arbitrary data.
  • Contact_Vcard_Build - Build (create) and fetch vCard 2.1 and 3.0 text blocks.
  • Contact_Vcard_Parse - Parse vCard 2.1 and 3.0 files.
  • Crypt_Blowfish - Allows for quick two-way blowfish encryption without requiring the Mcrypt PHP extension.
  • DB_DataObject_FormBuilder - Class to automatically build HTML_QuickForm objects from a DB_DataObject-derived class
  • DB_Table - Builds on PEAR DB to abstract datatypes and automate table creation, data validation, insert, update, delete, and select; combines these with PEAR HTML_QuickForm to automatically generate input forms that match the table column definitions.
  • File_Archive - File_Archive will let you manipulate easily the tar, gz, tgz, bz2, tbz, zip, ar (or deb) files
  • Image_Barcode - Barcode generation
  • Image_Graph - A package for displaying (numerical) data as a graph/chart/plot.
  • Net_SmartIRC - a PHP class for communication with IRC networks
  • Services_Trackback - Trackback - A generic class for sending and receiving trackbacks.
  • Text_Figlet - Render text using FIGlet fonts

And at PECL:

  • big_int - big_int library provides a set of functions for calculations with arbitrary length integers and bitsets
  • ingres - Extension for CA's Ingres database.
  • intercept - Intercept function/method calls
  • svn - PHP Bindings for the Subversion Revision control system.
  • WinBinder - A Native Windows binding for PHP

As always, you can download or learn more about these packages at http://pear.php.net/ and http://pecl.php.net/.

See you next week with more news and tidbits from the PHP world!