A framework provides you with many of the common components required to develop a website - for example, database access, templating systems and authorization systems. [...] These frameworks are all open source - which means that anyone can review and suggest improvements to the code. Using a framework provides you with many benefits.

He suggests that a framework should be:

• Time-saving
• Reliable
• Adherent to well-structured patterns
• Fostering a good community
• Not too difficult to learn
• Well-performing (and easy to extend with something like caching)

In the community of PHP developers there are more non-certified professionals than certified professionals. PHP developers mostly don't really see the pro's of getting certified. These developers mostly honor the fact that PHP is a quick and easy language to learn and to get started with, and professionalism is found even by building a simple dynamic web page, leaving the discussion of whether this is a good or bad thing for what it is.

He talks about the confidence it can give current (and future) employers in your skill level and let them know you're the kind that keeps on learning/improving in your career. It also lets them know that you're dedicated enough to learn what you need to pass and can put it into practice easier in the future.

Obviously moving the functionality [of Drupal] - not to mention the existing userbase - to a new language would be a herculean task; but what if the new language was just a version of the old. What if Drupal forked PHP and began working on its own version? With that thought in mind, I began to think hard about reasons they would want to do this. Here are the four best I came up with.

Cal list of advantages include an improved development process based on Drupal practices, the creation of a tailor made language they could tweak to just their needs, tighter integration between language and application and, of course, the ability to control the future of the language according to their needs.

Frameworks should be used when constructing web applications. Any application that involves a database, forms, sessions, cookies or a remote service (such as Twitter or Facebook) will benefit from being powered by a framework. There is no need to use a framework for a website that has only one or two pages, nor for command line utility scripts.

He lists some of the common features frameworks provide including database abstraction, caching, form management, authentication and internationalization. He also includes some of the more general benefits you get from using frameworks like portability, shorter development time, application security, plugins/module support and the enforcement of good coding standards (depends on the framework, obviously).

When you are held responsible to other people and when you are in an environment that has competition, that not only helps the company as a whole, but it allows for more individual growth. In the typical corporate atmosphere, accountability and competition can be lost because no one really knows anyone else. But the other side of this, in extra small companies, you can have too much accountability...where every move is constantly watched.

He notes that, without the pressure of peers - ones that you really know and that really know you and your work - the quality of the applications written degrades in most situations. Sure, there'll be the one or two developers that are extra motivated, but without the real interaction with other skilled developers, innovation can quickly fade.

Imagine a world where clients will give up on receiving responses from your application in mere seconds, where failed emails will give rise to complaints and lost business, where there exist tasks that must be performed regularly regardless of how many requests your application receives. This is not a fantasy world, it's reality. [...] Asynchronous processing is a method of performing tasks outside the loop of the current request. Basically, you offload the task to another process, leaving the process serving the request free to respond quickly and without delay.

He talks about some of the problems that asynchronous processing solves (like tasks that must be completed despite errors) and starts to outline a simple processing structure with child processes and task handling.

Quercus allows developers to incorporate Java code into PHP web applications and gives both Java and PHP developers a fast, safe, and powerful alternative to the standard PHP interpreter.

He mentions what it supports - things like Unicode and several of the popular extensions like APC, GD, MySQL, Oracle and PDF). There's also benefits he points out like the speed of the libraries (and safety) as well as interoperability with Java code and frameworks. Check out the official Quercus website for more information.

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over the differences between the two extensions despite the length of time that mysqli has been in the wild. I wanted to briefly review the four major benefits of mysqli.

Here's the list

• Prepared Statements
• Secure MySQL connections
• Multi query
• Object Oriented Interface

He also includes a few more links to further information (besides the explanation for each of the topics listed above) including an article from the Zend Developer Zone and a tutorial covering making the switch to MySQLi.

JIT (just in time) compilation is, according to Wikipedia, a method for converting, at runtime, code from one format into another, for example bytecode into native machine code. To try to see the benefit of this, Jacob asks four questions in his post (each with their own problems):

• Q: What advantage over opcode caching is gained?
  P: A JIT library that works with PHP would have to support all of the architectures that PHP can run on!
• Q: Which JIT library is the best one?
  P: A JIT compiler is not going to achieve anything without either storing the results or caching them.
• Q: Wouldn't writing PHP extensions negate the need for JIT compilation?
• Q: When will I develop and release my implementation?

The option, 'All' has won hands-down with a majority of 20.6%. A contradicting result is seen as next to 'All' is the option 'None' with 12.7% votes. The third position goes to 'easy install and works with your existing board' as it has garnered 4.8% votes. The last on the list is 'topic URLS are dynamically converted to SEO friendly addresses' which has got a dismal 0.0%.

Be sure to check out this week's poll too - it asks for votes on which of the options is the most important feature of PHP 5. Options include "Better error handling", "Newer useful functions", and "Best OOP support period".