On the SitePoint PHP blog today there's a new tutorial from Taylor Ren showing you how to get started with PHP-CPP for creating PHP extensions. PHP-CPP is a C++ library that makes it simpler (and faster) to create PHP-specific extensions.

In your dealings with PHP, you may come to consider writing a PHP extension yourself. [...] When it comes to choosing a tool to build PHP extensions, we see two different approaches: use more pro-PHP semantics, like Zephir or use more pro-C/C++ semantics, like PHP-CPP, which will be addressed in this article. For me, the main drive to select the second approach is simple: I started my programming hobby with C/C++, so I still feel more comfortable writing those lower level modules in C/C++. PHP-CPP’s official site gives a few other reasons to do so.

He walks you through the installation of the library (for now, just a git clone) and getting the needed environment set up to be able to compile and test out the extension. He helps you set up the "skeleton" files for the extension, including some sample content. He includes code for a typical "Hello World" example extension as well as its use in a sample PHP script.