In his latest post Freek Lijten talks about PHP extensions, the upcoming PHP version - well, PHP7 - and the things that can be (and are being) done to help improve and prepare the extension ecosystem. In his post he walks you through the process of getting a PHP7 install set up, a sample extension set up and writing some tests to help improve it.

PHP7 is coming. And it is coming to a neighbourhood near you :) A couple of people started an initiative to ensure extensions will be running out of the box once PHP7 hits the shelves. The fun part: You can help too! No C knowledge is necessary (although it is fun to dive into PHP's internals!). This piece is a short intro to help you help PHP! Help triaging extensions, write tests, add documentation and who knows when you'll be diving into C code.

He's encouraging this work as a part of the recently launched GoPHP7 - Extensions initiative launched a while back. He starts by helping you get PHP7 installed (from source, compiled). Once that's installed and working, he helps you get an extension up and running, in this case the enchant extension. He shows you how to run the tests for the extension and how to write some tests to contribute back to the project. He includes instructions for generating code coverage reports, walks you through some sample code and a link to a page with more information if you get stuck.