If you're the kind of person that wonders more about the internals of PHP and how it works "under the covers" you'll find this new post from Nikita Popov a good read. It talks about how PHP handles its order of operations in more complex evaluation statements.

At this point many people seem to think that the order in which an expression is evaluated is determined by operator precedence and associativity. But that's not true. Precedence and associativity only tell you how the expressions are grouped.[...] What does this tell us about the order of evaluation? Nothing. Operator precedence and associativity specify grouping, but they do not specify in which order the groups are executed.

He gives a few examples to illustrate his point including multiple increments of the same variable at one time and how it's the "fault" of the compiled variables that were introduced in PHP 5.1. He shows the opcode version of the same PHP userland code and talks briefly about how to avoid this odd functionality in your application.

According to this new post, it seems like the corporate world, specifically Microsoft, has been looking more and more at dynamic languages like PHP.

InfoWorld posted an article last week in which Paul Krill, InfoWorld Editor at Large and Doug Dineley, Test Center Executive, sat down with Jason McConnell, the Visual Studio product manager responsible for all languages at Microsoft, to talk about "Dynamic Languages". It's actually an interesting read.

Cal talks about some of the goings-on in the piece, including the release of Phlanger for .NET integration, a bit of the Q&A that went back and forth, and his opinion on what the future holds for dynamic languages.

According to this new post, it seems like the corporate world, specifically Microsoft, has been looking more and more at dynamic languages like PHP.

InfoWorld posted an article last week in which Paul Krill, InfoWorld Editor at Large and Doug Dineley, Test Center Executive, sat down with Jason McConnell, the Visual Studio product manager responsible for all languages at Microsoft, to talk about "Dynamic Languages". It's actually an interesting read.

Cal talks about some of the goings-on in the piece, including the release of Phlanger for .NET integration, a bit of the Q&A that went back and forth, and his opinion on what the future holds for dynamic languages.

PHP Magazine has posted the results from one of their previous polls today - this time asking readers what they think the largest misconception surrounding PHP is.

The International PHP Magazine conducted a poll over the week, asking for your opinion on 'The misconceptions surrounding PHP'. The options provided were:

• Java/ASP/Ruby/Python/Perl/C is better, and faster than PHP
• PHP does not scale well
• PHP has to write/read everything from a database
• PHP does not support shared memory
• PHP is not a compiled language
• PHP can't run for days

The results from the poll showed unanimously that the impression that Java/ASP/Ruby/Python/Perl/C are better and faster than PHP topped the charts. Coming in close are two options - that PHP doesn't scale well and that PHP isn't a compiled language (surprising).

Check out their latest poll for the week asking what the most common security mistake is.

PHP Magazine has posted the results from one of their previous polls today - this time asking readers what they think the largest misconception surrounding PHP is.

The International PHP Magazine conducted a poll over the week, asking for your opinion on 'The misconceptions surrounding PHP'. The options provided were:

• Java/ASP/Ruby/Python/Perl/C is better, and faster than PHP
• PHP does not scale well
• PHP has to write/read everything from a database
• PHP does not support shared memory
• PHP is not a compiled language
• PHP can't run for days

The results from the poll showed unanimously that the impression that Java/ASP/Ruby/Python/Perl/C are better and faster than PHP topped the charts. Coming in close are two options - that PHP doesn't scale well and that PHP isn't a compiled language (surprising).

Check out their latest poll for the week asking what the most common security mistake is.

In a new post from her blog today, Sara Golemon seeks to dispell any FUD that might come up surrounding compiled variables (as there's already some issues raised in this interview).

She describes what they are with an illustration using a simple PHP script and breaking it out into the compiled version's parts - both in PHP4 and the PHP5 versions. Of course, representing what they are needs a flipside, so she presents a look at what they are *not* as well. There's also a brief mention of the special status that globals and static variables get outside the norm.

In a new post from her blog today, Sara Golemon seeks to dispell any FUD that might come up surrounding compiled variables (as there's already some issues raised in this interview).

She describes what they are with an illustration using a simple PHP script and breaking it out into the compiled version's parts - both in PHP4 and the PHP5 versions. Of course, representing what they are needs a flipside, so she presents a look at what they are *not* as well. There's also a brief mention of the special status that globals and static variables get outside the norm.