If you're relatively new to PHP, you may have read about something called "namespacing" but not fully understood it or the benefits it provides. Over on Reddit, there's a recent discussion where the poster asks about just that:

As I understand it, Namespacing provides a lot of useful context for developers, as well as making the autoloading of classes much easier (though I've never personally tried this). I can also see it being used in a large enough application where it might help keep things in scope, but this seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Apart from that, I'm not too clear on what namespacing actually does.

The comments to the thread including things like links to other resources and other suggestions like:

• tools to try out
• places to start using it in your own code
• the difference between underscores and real namespacing
• how they help avoid conflicts in naming and functionality

Chris Anstey has a new post to his blog with some of his suggestions to framework developers out there (those writing frameworks, not writing applications with them). He mentions some of the criteria he believes frameworks should have.

A framework provides you with many of the common components required to develop a website – for example, database access, templating systems and authorization systems. [...] These frameworks are all open source – which means that anyone can review and suggest improvements to the code. Using a framework provides you with many benefits.

He suggests that a framework should be:

• Time-saving
• Reliable
• Adherent to well-structured patterns
• Fostering a good community
• Not too difficult to learn
• Well-performing (and easy to extend with something like caching)

Iwan Luijks has a recent post to his blog trying to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions about becoming a certified ZCE through Zend's testing. He also includes some of the benefits of having the certification to go with your name.

In the community of PHP developers there are more non-certified professionals than certified professionals. PHP developers mostly don't really see the pro's of getting certified. These developers mostly honor the fact that PHP is a quick and easy language to learn and to get started with, and professionalism is found even by building a simple dynamic web page, leaving the discussion of whether this is a good or bad thing for what it is.

He talks about the confidence it can give current (and future) employers in your skill level and let them know you're the kind that keeps on learning/improving in your career. It also lets them know that you're dedicated enough to learn what you need to pass and can put it into practice easier in the future.

In a recent post Cal Evans shares his opinion on why he thinks the Drupal project should fork PHP and what benefits he sees for them in doing it.

Obviously moving the functionality [of Drupal] - not to mention the existing userbase - to a new language would be a herculean task; but what if the new language was just a version of the old. What if Drupal forked PHP and began working on its own version? With that thought in mind, I began to think hard about reasons they would want to do this. Here are the four best I came up with.

Cal list of advantages include an improved development process based on Drupal practices, the creation of a tailor made language they could tweak to just their needs, tighter integration between language and application and, of course, the ability to control the future of the language according to their needs.

On the Query7.com blog, Logan has posted his opinion on how you should be doing your development on sites that are more than just one or two pages - you should be using a framework.

Frameworks should be used when constructing web applications. Any application that involves a database, forms, sessions, cookies or a remote service (such as Twitter or Facebook) will benefit from being powered by a framework. There is no need to use a framework for a website that has only one or two pages, nor for command line utility scripts.

He lists some of the common features frameworks provide including database abstraction, caching, form management, authentication and internationalization. He also includes some of the more general benefits you get from using frameworks like portability, shorter development time, application security, plugins/module support and the enforcement of good coding standards (depends on the framework, obviously).

In the latest post to his blog Chris Roane looks at something that, while not generally considered a good thing, can help to make your development and work better - peer pressure.

When you are held responsible to other people and when you are in an environment that has competition, that not only helps the company as a whole, but it allows for more individual growth. In the typical corporate atmosphere, accountability and competition can be lost because no one really knows anyone else. But the other side of this, in extra small companies, you can have too much accountability...where every move is constantly watched.

He notes that, without the pressure of peers - ones that you really know and that really know you and your work - the quality of the applications written degrades in most situations. Sure, there'll be the one or two developers that are extra motivated, but without the real interaction with other skilled developers, innovation can quickly fade.

Padraic Brady has started up a new series of posts to his blog on the topic of asynchronous processing with PHP.

Imagine a world where clients will give up on receiving responses from your application in mere seconds, where failed emails will give rise to complaints and lost business, where there exist tasks that must be performed regularly regardless of how many requests your application receives. This is not a fantasy world, it's reality. [...] Asynchronous processing is a method of performing tasks outside the loop of the current request. Basically, you offload the task to another process, leaving the process serving the request free to respond quickly and without delay.

He talks about some of the problems that asynchronous processing solves (like tasks that must be completed despite errors) and starts to outline a simple processing structure with child processes and task handling.

In this recent post to the PHP::Impact blog, Federico talks about a slightly scary thing - a version of PHP implemented 100% in Java.

Quercus allows developers to incorporate Java code into PHP web applications and gives both Java and PHP developers a fast, safe, and powerful alternative to the standard PHP interpreter.

He mentions what it supports - things like Unicode and several of the popular extensions like APC, GD, MySQL, Oracle and PDF). There's also benefits he points out like the speed of the libraries (and safety) as well as interoperability with Java code and frameworks. Check out the official Quercus website for more information.

Charles Rowe shares four reasons/benefits he's come up with that should make you think about choosing MySQLi over the normal MySQL libraries for PHP for your application.

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over the differences between the two extensions despite the length of time that mysqli has been in the wild. I wanted to briefly review the four major benefits of mysqli.

Here's the list

• Prepared Statements
• Secure MySQL connections
• Multi query
• Object Oriented Interface

He also includes a few more links to further information (besides the explanation for each of the topics listed above) including an article from the Zend Developer Zone and a tutorial covering making the switch to MySQLi.

Charles Rowe shares four reasons/benefits he's come up with that should make you think about choosing MySQLi over the normal MySQL libraries for PHP for your application.

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over the differences between the two extensions despite the length of time that mysqli has been in the wild. I wanted to briefly review the four major benefits of mysqli.

Here's the list

• Prepared Statements
• Secure MySQL connections
• Multi query
• Object Oriented Interface

He also includes a few more links to further information (besides the explanation for each of the topics listed above) including an article from the Zend Developer Zone and a tutorial covering making the switch to MySQLi.