There are dozens of PHP frameworks around now, some attracting more attention than others. I am no expert on these frameworks and have not used a single one extensively so I wouldn't dream of recommending one over the other, nor do I want to enter the debate about what is or is not a framework (I'll work on the assumption that anything calling itself a framework is a framework). Instead I'm going to concentrate on how you can get started with a new framework as quickly as possible.

He suggests four examples that can help you get more familiar with each framework and how they're structured - a "hello world" as a first step, creating a simple calculator, making a guestbook and making a simple script to parse and paginate a remote RSS feed.

A long time ago, I wrote a two line hack that let you use Google as a command line calculator. It eventually ended up in the 2nd and 3rd editions of Google Hacks.

The code calls the Google Calculator page and pulls back in the contents, allowing you to pass in any sort of calulation you might want and pass back out the result all cleaned up and parsed out.