There's been quite a bit of drama lately around the PHP-FIG (Framework Interoperability Group) organization in the past few weeks, mostly resulting from an inflammatory situation involving one of the member projects. There's been questions around about the PHP-FIG, its role in the community and how that might change in the future. In this post to his site Evert Pot shares some of his own thoughts about the group and why it still matters.

The PHP-FIG is currently going through some growing pains. I recently resigned as a voting rep, and after some juvenile controversy Lavarel, Doctrine and Propel have as well.

Since its inception 8 years ago, the groups greatest problem has been to properly organize itself. [...] Now as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to these issues, PHP-CDS was setup with a much simpler process. [...] Some good stuff is happening though. A few people are working on a thankless effort to restructure the organization dubbed “FIG 3.0”. (thanks Larry Garfield and Michael Cullum).

He makes some of his own suggestions to the group as to things he think could be "quick wins" and help make the group better overall. He then gets to the "why it matters" section. He uses the PSR-6 caching standard as an example and points out that many other standards were based on successful interfaces on projects - not so much on the caching though. He also talks some about PSR-7 and how request/response handling can "look odd" at first glance. He suggests that while the PSR-7 standard probably evolved from too much discussion, but the PHP-FIG was there to facilitate that discussion. Now they just need to make it easier to get through the process...

Adam Culp has posted the latest episode of his Run Geek Radio podcast: Episode #6 - the Importance Of Vacations And Being Replaceable.

Adam Culp, the host of Run Geek Radio, shares a little about his vacation to South America where he went to Quito in Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, as well as Lima and Cusco in Peru. [...] He then highlights how vacations are so vital and important to the productivity and stress levels of employees, and shares how long weekends are great times for getaways but also how important it is to get away for one longer vacation each year.

[...] Adam also speaks a bit about how employees should make themselves replaceable to ensure they are promotable, and so they can truly get away when they are on vacation.

You can listen to this latest episode either via the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 of the show. If you enjoy it, be sure to subscribe to their feed and get information about the latest episodes as they're released.

In a new article today on PHPMaster.com Robert Mariotti takes a look at standards and how important they can be when developing applications (both in following them and defining them correctly). It's not specifically targeted at PHP developers, but it does give some good food for thought.

As a long-time programmer, often with a staff of other programmers to watch over, I learned early in my career how important enforcing programming standards is in contributing to the overall success of a project. Not only do standards affect an individual’s production of code, but they ensure that anyone else who may contribute code later can do so with a reasonable expectation of consistency.

He defines the abstract concept of "coding standards" as rules or guidelines that should be followed based on the application. Sure, there's more global standards for things (PSR-0 anyone?) but your needs will always be different and more fine-grained than those can get. He recommends standardizing everything, possibly using one of the standards popular open source projects have already laid out as a base.

In a new post to DZone.com today Giorgio Sironi asks developers what new feature of PHP 5.4 is the most important to you and your application development?

Recently, the voting process for PHP 5.4 open to committers and users have been closed. We now have a clear picture of what will make the release and what will be left out. Some of these features (traits, web server) were already in, while other have been just voted and will be completed before the general availability of the release.

He lists out some of the major changes that'll be coming in the 5.4 release including traits, dereferencing, the built-in HTTP server, closure type hinting and the upload progress feature previously only in an extension. The end of the post includes a poll for you to give your feedback on what you think is the most important. As of the time of this post, the array dereferencing has pulled into the lead with traits coming in second.

Anthony Wlodarski makes an important point about what one of your first steps should be when considering a framework for your application - be sure to read the source first. In his case, it was the Zend Framework.

One thing I learned early on with ZF was that the curators and associates in the ZF ecosystem always fall back to the root of “read the code/api/documentation”. With good reason too! It is not the volunteers simply shrugging you off but it is for your own good.

He includes an example of the Zend_Validate_File_ImageSize component. By reading the manual you get an idea of the input and output values, but you don't get as much of a sense of how it works unless you take some time to glance through the code.

If you think the only reason to go to a conference like ZendCon is for the main speaker list, you're missing out on half the fun and content. The Unconference, managed this year by Keith Casey promises to be one of the best ever (here's the list of suggested sessions so far). Matthew Weier O'Phinney agrees and in his latest post he talks about why unconferences are important and why you should attend.

Why should you care? There are great sessions already selected for the conference featuring some well-known speakers from the PHP world; why would you want to either attend or present at the uncon?

He talks about how the unconference atmosphere can help with continuing the conversation from other sessions (like a subversion talk that spawned off a best practices session), how it can be a "springboard" to getting into the speaking world and how it can help to explore new ideas and concepts that the main conference tracks just don't make very easy.

From BuildInternet.com today there's a new article from Jason Gilmore looking at PHP frameworks and why they matter to both the developers and the community at large.

Having been a PHP programmer for more than a decade, I’ve come to realize that many of my fellow PHP programmers seem to have a misplaced notion of what being "lazy" is really all about. [...] Suddenly the Web developer was facing so much more than validating user input and connecting to a database [and] the need to be a lazy programmer was more important than ever.

He covers a lot of the basics of frameworks with a focus on the Zend Framework (because of familiarity) - configuration, data validation tools, database connections, display helpers and the inclusion of third-party plugins.

The Developer Tutorials blog has posted their "winner" of a list of things to do to keep you and your website secure:

When it comes to PHP security, you often think of input filtering, SQL injection prevention, XSS in user submitted content and so on. Well, forget about that. They're all pretty trivial compared to what I feel is by far the most important security issue of any web application. Read on to find out why.

Their number one thing to do to keep safe and secure? "Keep your systems updated." They point out that security a web site is one thing but securing the system that it runs on/has been developed on is another (and improperly patched, it could cause some huge problems).

Now, the best way to keep on top of potential vulnerabilities in your underlying systems is with updates. Sometimes, however, you need to go a little further. [...] Watching the web is also a good idea; major security vulnerabilities generally make it to the front page of Digg.

The International PHP Magazine is back with the results from this weeks poll - "Poll Question: Which is the Most Important Feature of PHP 5?"

The options to choose from were:

• Better error handling
• Better MySQL performance
• Newer useful functions
• SQLite Database support
• Best OOP support period

With the last of the options coming out on top by a landslide (58.8%) followed far in the distance by "Newer useful functions" (10.3%).

Be sure to cast your vote in this week's poll that asks readers to vote on which method of the choices given is the best way to do testing on your applications.

The International PHP Magazine is back with the results from this weeks poll - "Poll Question: Which is the Most Important Feature of PHP 5?"

The options to choose from were:

• Better error handling
• Better MySQL performance
• Newer useful functions
• SQLite Database support
• Best OOP support period

With the last of the options coming out on top by a landslide (58.8%) followed far in the distance by "Newer useful functions" (10.3%).

Be sure to cast your vote in this week's poll that asks readers to vote on which method of the choices given is the best way to do testing on your applications.