The Developer.com article I wrote last year, 10 Experimental PHP Projects Pushing the Envelope, was originally intended to be little more than an homage to nontraditional PHP efforts that stretched beyond standard Web application development tools such as PHP-GTK and phpList. [...] Not only did this article turn out to be very entertaining to write, but it wound up being one of the most popular articles I wrote for Developer.com in 2010.

Some of the projects in this post include PHP for Android, PL/PHP, Objective-PHP and Apns-PHP (using Apple's Push Notification Services).

As the saying goes, "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should." But in the world of programming, stretching boundaries is just part of the fun. The PHP community has never been one to shy away from bending their favorite language more ways than a shopping mall pretzel, and as the ten wild projects introduced in this article indicate, the fervor for experimentation is as strong as ever!

Here's their list of the ten projects they see as trying to stretch the language to its limits:

• LisPHP
• Phalanger
• PHPLinq
• PHP-GTK
• Quercus
• PHP.js
• Qwench
• Phergie