As is mentioned in this new post on the Symfony Finland site, the functionality allowing the Twig templating engine to perform Angular 2 Universal Rendering.

Angular is a household name when it comes to JavaScript frameworks. They've been going through a major transition since the announcement of Angular 2. In the latest development Angular 2 will be getting PHP / Twig support for isomorphic rendering.

[...] So the Angular and the Drupal development teams have started working together to bring Universal Rendering to PHP and Twig. The details remain murky on how exactly this will be implemented (using a Node.js server or a PHP library), but a PHP library (not an extension written in C) would be the easiest option for developers.

He points out that there's also a chance that the result could be coupled to Drupal (at least at first) but hopes are that it will end up as a generic component usable in any system using Twig. The post also includes links where you can find out more information about the topic of "Isomorphic Rendering" too.

Rafael Dohms has started up a new project that wants to help developers get help on their broken code via collaboration with others - FixThatCode.com.

Coding is an art. There are many ways to paint an apple, but which is better? Most of the code we write everyday can be written in better ways to achieve different objectives. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes. Code quality can be observed through various identifying markers. Perhaps you're not aware of them, don't have time to look for them or are too caught up in the moment to notice? That's where FixThatCode.com steps in!

There's a few different categories you can ask for help in including "Make this code better", "Make this code faster" and "Give me feedback". So far there's some interesting examples to look at - mostly in the "Feedback" category as developers look to further their skills by learning from others. The site's still just starting out, but I could see it becoming a good resource to any community - not just PHP!

In this recent post to his blog Brian Smithwick talks about the "locked box" that developers can sometimes restrict themselves to - getting to comfortable in the tech they already know and not branching out.

Jason Austin gave a great presentation at CodeWorks Raleigh recently about cultivating one's passion for software development through side projects -- safe spaces where we can play with new technologies and techniques. The point's well taken: as developers, we're probably putting most of our energy towards the thing that must be solved, that keeps us employed, that pays our bills. [...] And so all of us, at one time or another, end up in a backwater of our own devising -- a locked box.

He also puts an emphasis on collaboration and community as it relates to becoming a better developer. By interacting with other code and other projects' developers, you learn not only more about other ways to develop but are exposed to ideas you may not have come across on your own.

I'd add that active participation in the local community is just as important though: the opportunities for exposure to new ideas outside your sphere are greater than your feed reader will probably provide, and the depth of information that you can get in a conversation may be better than any blog post or man page.

In a new post to his blog Lukas Smith proposes an idea for a loosely coupled interface setup that would allow for easier integration between third-party libraries and other applications.

Especially as for different libraries a different subset of the community could end up collaborating. Here I see 3 options: 1) each library bundles the interfaces (even though they sit in some common namespace), 2) each project asks their users to fetch the common interfaces from some other place 3) runtime "coupling". Option 3) doesn't exist today and is what this blog post is about.

He introduces the idea of a "spl_register_compatible_interface" method that would let you compare interfaces to see if they'd mesh. There'd still have to be a lot of communication between developers to make things match, though. He suggests three "practical issues" that libraries/tools would have to overcome to use a system like this - each framework has their own interface setup, the lead time for collaboration could be too much to be worthwhile, a lack of interest from some about collaboration and the idea of competing interface methods.

He's looking for feedback from the community on the idea(s) though, so go and leave a comment with your thoughts!

On the RIA Zone (a part of the DZone network) there's a new tutorial from Ryan Stewart about combining PHP with the Flash Collaboration Services (real-time collaboration and social capabilities via the LCCS) in the second part of his series (part one).

Another great way to integrate LCCS and PHP is with the REST APIs and the library that ships with the LCCS SDK. With those APIs we can perform a number of management functions including creating and deleting rooms, managing roles, and creating templates. These APIs make it very easy to create a customized, dynamic collaboration experience with PHP. You can create rooms on the fly for your users and get information about what kind of content is in those rooms. In this example we're going to create a basic room manager with PHP that will let us create, delete, and view information about specific rooms.

Code is included to use the AFCS PHP library to connect to the Services API and pass in the username and password directly from the user. The request is made and a token is passed back to the calling script. The XML description of the full Flex application is included in the tutorial.

Noupe.com has posted a top ten list of what they consider some of the best PHP/Ajax-based webmail clients (as based on the user interface and ease of use).

Employees need to access their email from wherever they happen to be – on the road, at customer sites, remote offices, and at home. [...] Today i wanted to share with you 10 AJAX-based webmail client that delivers the look and feel, usability and performance of a desktop application. Some of the webmail clients listed below are open source code that can be easily modified to better suit user’s needs, while others are not. So You must check their license to know the rules.

Included in their list is software like:

• RoundCube
• Zimbra
• SquirrelMail
• Hastymail
• Claros inTouch

Some of these tools offer more than just email too - they can include things like collaboration tools and mobile versions right out of the box.

On the ThinkPHP blog today, Ute has posted about a developer blog that has been started up for PHProjekt:

Seven and half years and a lot of downloads later the development team decided that a complete makeover is necessary not only to include more Web 2.0 features but also to add new functions to one of the most popular Open Source Groupware based on PHP. [...] There are still some months left till PHProjekt 6 will be released but for the time being you can follow the progress in a developers' blog started recently.

The blog already has information on the upcoming version (PHProjekt 6) and a first part of a "what's new" series on additions to the project. PHProject is an open source groupware application providing tools like shared calendars, project management and file management.

Matthew Turland has posted some of his thoughts about a topic that's being tossed around in the programming world these days - that PHP is "on its way out".

I have to vehemently disagree with this, and not just because PHP is my language of preference.

He gives several reasons to back up the claim including the fact that large players use the language in high-profile sites as well as the recent upturn of popularity the language has seen (as people come back from the over-hyped other languages).

He mentions collaborations between PHP companies/divisions as well as components made to more efficiently run PHP applications on other web server types.

Matthew Turland has posted some of his thoughts about a topic that's being tossed around in the programming world these days - that PHP is "on its way out".

I have to vehemently disagree with this, and not just because PHP is my language of preference.

He gives several reasons to back up the claim including the fact that large players use the language in high-profile sites as well as the recent upturn of popularity the language has seen (as people come back from the over-hyped other languages).

He mentions collaborations between PHP companies/divisions as well as components made to more efficiently run PHP applications on other web server types.