As linked to by the Zend Developer Zone today, the MC|Press online site has a new article about the latest feature IBM has added to the PHP distributions on their System i servers - the mail() function.

PHP, the popular Web development language, has long provided a built-in function, mail(), to send email messages. Until recently, this function was available only on non-System i platforms. The limitation applied both to home-grown System i PHP versions and to beta releases of Zend Core for i5/OS (the PHP distribution by IBM and Zend).

Users of PHP on System i can now rejoice. The GA release of Zend Core for i5/OS, introduced in August 2006, implements mail().

They cover all aspects of why this is definitely a good thing. Developers tend to take this handy function for granted until they really need to interact with the outside world via emails. They take a brief look at what the mail function is, including how it's used, configuration settings for it, and some of the other alternatives that are offered (with advantages and disadvantages of choosing them).