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.
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!