In the latest episode (#46) of the "Lately in PHP" podcast series Manuel Lemos and Arturs Sosins wonder if Hack will ever replace PHP.

The release of the Facebook Hack language has shaken the PHP community since it implements several frequently requested features that were never implemented, many users are considering to drop PHP in favor of Hack. This was one of the main topics discussed by Manuel Lemos and Arturs Sosins on the episode 46 of the Lately in PHP podcast. They also talked about the OpenSSL Heartbleed security bug may affect PHP sites or not, ideas for the PHP 6 engine, the need for an official PHP specification, and an advanced email validation that can provide suggestions for address typos like Google did you mean feature.

You can catch this latest episode either through the in-page audio player, by downloading the mp3 or by watching the video of the live Google Hangout recording.

In the wake of the announcement of the Heartbleed vulnerability in the widely used OpenSSL software, the PHPClasses blog has posted a look at how it relates to PHP applications and how you can see if your application is effected.

Just a few days ago it was publicly announced a serious security bug called Heartbleed that affects secure sites based on the OpenSSL library. Read this article to learn more about this security problem, how to test if your Web server or SSH server is vulnerable, how it may affect your PHP sites, what you should do to fix the problem.

They start with a look at the bug, what it is and why it's such a big problem. It talks about what kinds of applications are vulnerable (hint: it has nothing to do with the PHP) and how you can test to see if your server is secure. The rest of the post talks about how to resolve the issue and how it relates to OpenSSL connections to other servers and SSH.