On Richard Davey's blog today, he has this new post that asks the question "will the Zend Framework save PHP?"

As we embrace the changes that 2006 will bring to the PHP community, I can but only wonder about what is to become of PHP 5. Talk and debate over PHP 6 is already a hot topic, and despite being in a stable release for over 2 years PHP 5 has failed to see any significant kind of adoption rates, lingering at an astonishingly low 4.2%. Will PHP 5 be the version that everyone 'skipped', or could the Zend Framework be its saviour?

He talsk about some of the usage stats from this past year, the mailing list discussions on PHP5, the rate of advancement between PHP4 and PHP5, and how the talk of PHP6 might be hindering things. He wraps it all up with a look at what might be the "knight in framework armour" for PHP5 users everywhere...