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PHP 5.1’s Killer Feature? - SitePoint PHP Blog:

At this stage, PHP 5.1 is not looking to be quite as spectacular. Some enhancements to Perl regular expressions, a few extra array functions… nothing to write home about. But there is one significant enhancement to PHP in 5.1: PHP Data Objects (PDO). The PDO library lets you access any of an extensive selection of supported databases using a signle set of functions. So not only do you only need to learn one set of functions to write for multiple databases, but you can transition an application to another database without having to change all the functions throughout your code.

(Via Sitepoint.)

Not a ton of detail about PDO, but I’m curious to check it out. I’ve bought heavily into PEAR DB_DataObject on most of my apps from the past year, so I’ll be interested to see how PDO compares in terms of rapid app dev (the main reason I’ve used DB_DataObjects).

Check out Wez Furlong’s blog for more info on PDO.

Alan Knowles is working on DBDO, what appears to basically be an implementation of DB_DataObject as a PECL extension — sensible, since he’s lead on DB_DataObject as well. It’s currently quite alpha, but I hope that Alan is able to continue work on this and get it closer to a usable state.

This was an interesting article on recursive programming. I do it infrequently enough that I have to try and remember how to properly structure recursive functions whenever I write one, and this gave me a few basic things to remember that will make it easier next time around.

Mastering recursive programming:

Recursion is a tool not often used by imperative language developers, because it is thought to be slow and to waste space, but as the author demonstrates, there are several techniques that can be used to minimize or eliminate these problems. He introduces the concept of recursion and tackle recursive programming patterns, examining how they can be used to write provably correct programs. Examples are in Scheme and C.

(Via OSNews.)

PHP Podcast - Evil, as in Dr.: I’ve just finished chatting with Marcus Whitney for part of the next installment of his Pro PHP Podcast show. It’s my first recorded conversation/interview for public consumption. I’m kinda nervous and hope that I didn’t ramble on too much. But that’s what it’s all about; getting more personality out of people than you would with just text alone.

(Via planetphp.net.)

I really dug the first Pro PHP podcast, and I’m looking forward to the first interview.

rebirth of wxPHP - NuCleuZ blog

Looks like wxPHP development has started up again ( not that there was anything there before… ), and 2 days ago the first commit to cvs was done ( no: nothing there yet, but at least the work has been started ). Been a while since this was first announced, would still like to see this project up and running since wxWidgets is a very nice toolkit ( and just about every other language got bindings to it ).

Sometimes I wonder if people aren’t pressing PHP into areas where it doesn’t work out so hot. It of course works very well for web apps, and seems decent when I’ve used it for shell scripting, but I wonder if it really lends itself to desktop GUI dev. Then again, I’ve never tried it, so I could just be talking out of my ass.

IBM backs open-source Web software | CNET News.com

Interesting development. Then again, didn’t Sun makes some “partnership” moves with Zend a while back? Haven’t heard much from that lately.

IBM came in and sold Purdue’s IT department on Websphere, so if this does pan out, it may mean more interest and opportunities for PHP on campups. That would be nice.

More on this:

• Andi Gutmans
• Tobias Schlitt
• Press Release at IBM

  Zend Core for IBM will be a seamless, out-of-the-box PHP development and production environment, based on PHP 5 technology. The product includes tight integration with IBM Cloudscape database server, DB2 and native support for XML and Web Services - supporting increased adoption of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). It delivers an unprecedented rapid development and deployment foundation for database driven applications and offers an upgrade path from the easy-to-use, lightweight Cloudscape database to the mission critical DB2, by providing a consistent API to developers. Zend Core for IBM will be available in the second quarter of 2005 as a free download via the DB2 and Cloudscape product site and IBM’s developer portal, developerWorks via this easy-to-use package, PHP development or production servers can be setup within minutes. Additionally, a new PHP technology area will be introduced within IBM developerWorks to assist developers as they adopt PHP and IBM technologies for their applications. Zend Core for IBM support and updates will be made available directly from Zend Technologies. This offering will be compatible with existing products such as Zend Platform and Zend Studio. IBM is also planning to support Zend Core for IBM with the latest version of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS).