Focusing on PHP day in and day out is nice, but sometimes it's good to branch out a bit. Kevin Yank agrees and decided to give Python a try. He's written up this post to the SitePoint PHP blog as he explores the language from a PHP developer's perspective.

Like may SitePoint readers, I cut my teeth on PHP. I've become very comfortable with it over the years, warts and all. PHP continues to be a dependable choice, but PHP hasn’t changed a whole lot lately. [...] Python has a lot in common with PHP: it’s a dynamically typed, open source scripting language with excellent documentation and a thriving community around it.

He includes a few basic "Hello World" kinds of examples in Python just to introduce you to the language structure (indenting for code structure? that's crazy talk for us PHPers) and some of the handy features of the language like sequences and the language's automatic namespace support.

On the Debuggable blog, Tim Koschutki has posted the first part of a series looking at unit testing the CakePHP framework. This first article introduces you to the idea of unit testing to help lay the foundation for what's to come.

So you want to read up on Unit Testing in CakePHP? That is great, testing can be such a help in finding bugs. [...] Surprisingly, many people do not know yet what unit testing is. In this first part of a whole series you can get a good grasp of what it is and is not.

He goes over the basic concepts behind the testing - setting up test cases, comparing results, automating them and how they related to code coverage. He gets into more detail with a list of the assert functions (like assertNotEqual or assertClone) and some examples using the simpletest unit testing software. He wraps it up by listing some of the benefits of unit testing, the limitations of it, TDD and what Mock objects are.

The PHPEveryDay.com website has several new tutorials they've posted recently - here's the list:

• PHP WDDX: Creating Web Service Client
• PHP WDDX: Creating Web Service Server
• PHP WDDX: Unserializing Data
• PHP WDDX: Complex Serialization
• PHP WDDX: Simple Serialization Using PHP function
• PHP WDDX: Recordset Element
• PHP WDDX: Struct Element
• PHP WDDX: Using Array Elements
• PHP WDDX: Understanding Simple Data Type
• PHP WDDX: Understanding Data Elements
• PHP WDDX: Understanding Anatomy of WDDX
• PHP WDDX: Introduction

Check out PHPEveryDay.com for even more great tutorials and articles.

Tony Freixas continues his introductory look at "booting" a PHP script with part two of his series (here's part one) looking at using libraries.

In the good old days, if you wanted to create re-usable code, you would create a library of related functions or objects. Now, the excitement is all around frameworks. Everyone has one. What is the difference between the two?

He compares a library and a framework, pointing out key differences like how they fit with the application (controlled by or controlling) and dependencies they require. He rounds out his boot sequence, adding a few new parts to the structure of his example application.

Michael Kimsal has put together a small page to help you get started using the phpUnderControl continuous integration system:

If you're not using phpUnderControl, you owe it to yourself to check it out, as I think 'continuous integration' will likely change the way you think of development. I've used CruiseControl in the past for PHP, but the PHP-specifics phpUnderControl brings to the project are too much to pass up.

The page mentions some of the common issues you might have in getting started - installation problem, the use of the PHP Code Sniffer and the Project Mess Detector from PHPUnit.

There's a few new Zend Framework tutorials posted today over on the PHPEveryDay.com website:

• Zend Framework Session: Automatic Expiration
• Zend Framework Session: Locking and Unlocking Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Seing All Values at Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Accessing Session Data
• Zend Framework Session: Using Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Introduction

Check out their articles section for even more great PHP-related content.

In this new post to his blog today, Padraic Brady continues his series looking at developing a blog with the Zend Framework. He moves on to look at the MVC structure behind the application in this latest post.

After speaking with any number of users about getting started with a framework, I find many do not have an advanced understanding of the corner stone of a current day web application framework: the Model-View-Controller Design Pattern.

He explains the normal development approach (kind of a Page Controller where each bit of functionality has its own page) versus the Model/View/Controller approach of separation of presentation and logic in a structured fashion. He also goes through each of the parts of the MVC equation and shows the difference between the roles that the Controller and Model have in the application.

Rob Allen has updates his tutorial that gets developers started with the Zend Framework for the latest release of the Framework - version 1.5:

Zend Framework 1.5 has now been released to mark the occasion I have significantly updated my Zend Framework Tutorial! The tutorial was first released on 16th August 2006 and was written against version 0.1 of Zend Framework and had one major revision to bring in support for the ViewRenderer component.

The updates include the addition of some of the "goodies" the new release offers - like Zend_Form's additions and Zend_Layout - as well as other smaller features that can make a Zend Framework-er's life easier.

On the Developer Tutorials website, they're posted this new article talking about a simple way to create PDFs with PHP:

[PDFs] also serve as a perfect way of allowing your users to download or email a page from your website. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to generate PDF files in pure PHP and distribute your content in a single, consistent format.

They look at the why behind creating PDFs in PHP, what options you have and an example creating a basic "hello world" PDF.

On the Developer Tutorials website, this new tutorial has been posted looking to help you get started with the PHP application framework CodeIgniter.

Chances are, however, that you just want to get on with coding, and don't want to have to deal with complex libraries. CodeIgniter achieves this wonderfully, staying out of your way but offering a lot of functionality if and when you need it.

The tutorial takes a little time to explain what an MVC framework is before getting in to how to use it (it makes more sense when you know how requests are handled). They create a simple "jobs" application to get you started that not only shows the structure of a simple app, but also includes how interface it with a (MySQL) database as well.