In a new post to the SitePoint PHP blog editor Bruno Skvorc shares the results of the PHP framework survey the site posted a month back. In it they asked developers for their opinions on favorite frameworks (not necessarily the one they use, but their own personal opinion). For anyone that's been keeping up with the current state of PHP frameworks, the results aren't all that surprising though.

One month ago, we started the annual SitePoint framework popularity survey. Now that the month has expired, it’s time to look at the results and to distribute the prizes. The response was a whopping ~7800 entries, far more than any other survey we’ve held so far, and even after filtering out invalid entries we end up with a formidable number of valid participants.

According to the results the most popular framework, by far, was Laravel. Coming in second was Symfony2 and third the Nette framework. They did ask for different opinions for personal versus business choices but the results track the same between the two. He also splits out the data into the top results by country and by the age of the people who responded.

He finishes off the post with some of his own thoughts on why Laravel was the clear winner with only some of it having to do with the framework itself. He points out the related projects, "near perfect documentation" and other things (like Laravel's own subreddit). He suggests that, even though open source and "free" tend to go together, spending money and a good amount of time on a project can help ensure it succeeds. He also offers some practical advice for those wanting to give their project a boost:

Spread the word, analyze solutions from other people, discuss them. Be open, be transparent. Have an official blog, get a StackOverflow tag, justify your decisions, get in touch with popular publications which can help promote your framework if you present it well enough.

The SitePoint PHP blog has posted a request for responses to a survey about which PHP framework you consider to be the best for 2015.

Almost a year and a half ago we published the results of a framework survey on the PHP channel. The survey, while producing fewer entries than our IDE survey still provided us with valuable insight into our audience and the state of individual vs. team developers out there.

With Laravel 5 fresh out of the oven, Phalcon being kickstarted into full-time development, and others reaching a much anticipated maturity, it’s only natural we’re curious about your preferences – have they changed? Do they remain unbudged? Do you wish you could switch so hard you can taste it, but aren’t allowed to by your company? We’re interested in all these points and much more.

The survey will run for a month and there's some prizes involved for the top "resharers" of the survey. You can submit your own votes directly through the post at the bottom. Questions range from which framework you prefer to which you use at your place of employment and why each was chosen. Submit your answers today and help get a better idea of the PHP framework landscape.

That Podcast, hosted by PHP community members Beau Simensen and Dave Marshall, has released their latest episode: Episode 15: The first one where we follow-up on our goals for 2015.

Beau and Dave discuss Beau's recent trip to PHP Benelux, That Podcast Merchandise, our progress with our newly formed habits for 2015, fitness, finances, writing, reading, Superbowl and family things.

Topics (and people) mentioned in this latest episode include:

• @coderabbi
• Beau's "Decorating Applications with Stack" talk from #phpbnl15
• Test Data Builders
• Working Effectively with Unit Tests
• in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 of the show. Be sure to subscribe to their feed too if you enjoy the show!

The SitePoint PHP blog has shared a list of their suggestions of the best tips, resources and best practices for 2015. This includes tips about your environments, tools and techniques you can use to improve your everyday work.

PHP has had many reputations over the years, but being insecure as a language never really was one of them. The core team, all its faults notwithstanding, is rather quick in pouncing on all security matters, and updating PHP to the latest version will often allay all worries. But the end users, such as we are, tend to mess things up. We don’t update, we use outdated packages or packages with holes in them we’re not aware of, we use ancient extensions… we expose ourselves to risk in some truly creative ways.

Some of the things mentioned include:

• Keeping your PHP up to date
• Adopt HTTPS
• Secure your PHP
• Stay on the Right Way
• Avoid Bad Packages
• Dodge common mistakes
• Use Virtualization

Each section comes with a description and plenty of links to point you in a good direction and get you started off right for 2015.