Lukas Smith responds to some criticism that he and several of the other core PHP developer developers have gotten steadily over the years - "why don't you just rewrite PHP and get rid of all of the problems that have accumulated over the years?" His answer is, basically, "it would be a serious effort."

A lot of people have bet their business on PHP. They have invested heavily in building up large codes bases. More importantly a lot of people have bet their careers on PHP. So if we go an "reinvent" PHP from scratch, we would do these people a huge disservice. Even if these people would appreciate the rewrite as something they would have rather used, its too late for them. Too late for their current projects at any rate. I think its PHP.net's job to continue developing PHP to make sure it solves the "web problem" while ensuring a realistic upgrade path for its current users.

He supports any effort of a group that might come along and, taking the good in PHP, makes a new version and "reinvents" the language into something better, but he warns those groups that they should still be considerate of the past. Its his opinion that any group doing a major rewrite should work together with the current PHP developers, not as an opposing force. Knowing the history behind the language can only help others figure out where the true problems lie.

Also, be sure to check out the comments on the post for some other great opinions.

Doug Hill has proposed a new project that he hopes to get the community behind - 60 Days:

60 Days is an idea I had while trying to decide what to do with the domains I have sitting around doing nothing — (well nothing but being a nagging reminder that I'll never have time for every idea that pops into my head, and that domain names cost money to keep).

The goal of the project is to take a domain you're not currently using (and you know you have some out there) and making something - a "real world project" - on it in 60 days. the catch is that, for each domain you use for the effort, it has to be a different PHP framework. Keep an eye out for the January 1 launch date for more details.

As mentioned in several places (including over on digg.com), the GoPHP5 project has launched their website to help everyone keep tabs on how the push towards PHP5 is going - GoPHP5.org.

The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.

Included in the site are a list of web hosts that support the GoPHP5 project, software projects that have committed themselves to "being PHP5" by the deadline and - front and center - a countdown timer for how long they have left.

Other sites mentioning the GoPHP5 site/effort:

• Alexey Zakhlestin's blog
• the Syntux.net Blog
• this new post on the Symfony blog

As mentioned in several places (including over on digg.com), the GoPHP5 project has launched their website to help everyone keep tabs on how the push towards PHP5 is going - GoPHP5.org.

The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.

Included in the site are a list of web hosts that support the GoPHP5 project, software projects that have committed themselves to "being PHP5" by the deadline and - front and center - a countdown timer for how long they have left.

Other sites mentioning the GoPHP5 site/effort:

• Alexey Zakhlestin's blog
• the Syntux.net Blog
• this new post on the Symfony blog

The International PHP Magazine is back with the results on their latest poll today that asked developers to vote on which, of their options, a PHP developer should give the most effort towards when creating their applications.

Options included "Magic Methods", "IDE's" and "Database Support" but the number one option that got the most votes by far was "Classes". This left second ("All" at 19.3 percent) and third ("Database Support" at 8.4 percent) place in the dust.

If you're a CodeIgniter user, be sure to get your vote in on this week's poll asking users to vote on which of the feature options they've given is what makes CodeIgniter the best framework out there.

The International PHP Magazine is back with the results on their latest poll today that asked developers to vote on which, of their options, a PHP developer should give the most effort towards when creating their applications.

Options included "Magic Methods", "IDE's" and "Database Support" but the number one option that got the most votes by far was "Classes". This left second ("All" at 19.3 percent) and third ("Database Support" at 8.4 percent) place in the dust.

If you're a CodeIgniter user, be sure to get your vote in on this week's poll asking users to vote on which of the feature options they've given is what makes CodeIgniter the best framework out there.

As mentioned on the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a new article posted over on the TMCNet.com website about the support and cooperation that IBM is giving PHPers all over the world running System i machines.

Over the past year, Zend and IBM have worked together to make Zend's popular PHP products available for V5R3 and V5R4 versions of i5/OS. Zend Core for i5/OS is a fully tested and enhanced version of open source PHP; Zend Platform for i5/OS is a PHP production environment that improves application management and performance; and Zend Studio for i5/OS is a PHP Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that includes all of the components necessary to support the lifecycle of PHP applications created on i5/OS.

Mark Shearer, general manager IBM System i also notes that one of the goals of the cooperative effort was one they've met successfully so far - to bring tools to System i users to allow them to quickly and easily develop applications in their environment.

The article also includes a small list of companies already using this technology including Parts Depot, MedDirect and HarrisData.

As mentioned on the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a new article posted over on the TMCNet.com website about the support and cooperation that IBM is giving PHPers all over the world running System i machines.

Over the past year, Zend and IBM have worked together to make Zend's popular PHP products available for V5R3 and V5R4 versions of i5/OS. Zend Core for i5/OS is a fully tested and enhanced version of open source PHP; Zend Platform for i5/OS is a PHP production environment that improves application management and performance; and Zend Studio for i5/OS is a PHP Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that includes all of the components necessary to support the lifecycle of PHP applications created on i5/OS.

Mark Shearer, general manager IBM System i also notes that one of the goals of the cooperative effort was one they've met successfully so far - to bring tools to System i users to allow them to quickly and easily develop applications in their environment.

The article also includes a small list of companies already using this technology including Parts Depot, MedDirect and HarrisData.

On his blog, Padraic Brady has this post on a topic that's arisen from the PHP Developer's Network forums - the idea of creating a community-built book surrounding PHP.

The PHP Developer's Network forums were abuzz today after a member's proposal to write a community PHP book for novice programmers, with sections targeting advanced topics and programmers. The instigator was d11wtq (Chris Corbyn), who on a side note recently released the excellent Swift Mailer library. It's a simple proposal - write a book, and release it in some (or many) formats for free.

So why write yet another PHP book? I think the proposal caught such attention because of the method of writing and the motivation for doing so. And admit it, it's a very intriguing idea.

He talks more about how the book would be created ("a community sourced effort") and how quality of the content would be maintained. Creative freedom would also be engouraged, and some motivations as to why a developer would want to contribute to the book at all.

On his blog, Padraic Brady has this post on a topic that's arisen from the PHP Developer's Network forums - the idea of creating a community-built book surrounding PHP.

The PHP Developer's Network forums were abuzz today after a member's proposal to write a community PHP book for novice programmers, with sections targeting advanced topics and programmers. The instigator was d11wtq (Chris Corbyn), who on a side note recently released the excellent Swift Mailer library. It's a simple proposal - write a book, and release it in some (or many) formats for free.

So why write yet another PHP book? I think the proposal caught such attention because of the method of writing and the motivation for doing so. And admit it, it's a very intriguing idea.

He talks more about how the book would be created ("a community sourced effort") and how quality of the content would be maintained. Creative freedom would also be engouraged, and some motivations as to why a developer would want to contribute to the book at all.