Alex Netkachov has shared six tips in a new post on his blog today for how you can write less PHP code and get more done with it. It's based around another post from Arnold Daniels talking about a temporary variable method in PHP.

This tip is useful to "lazy" developers who do not even think about variable names. They may prefer magic names like ${0} and 0 is good enough variable name, why not...

His list consists of:

• Use || (or) and && (and) operations instead of if.
• Use ternary operator.
• Use for instead of while.
• In some cases PHP requires you to create a variable. [...] To handle all these situation you can create a set of small functions which shortcuts frequently used operations.
• Explore the language you use.
• When it is better to write more and then read the code easily, do not be lazy.

Check out Vidyut Luther's response to Alex's comments as well as one from Richard Heyes.

Kore Nordmann has made a post on his blog with more details on the Image_3D package and some of the rendering times he noticed (and the improvements) with the Zend Guard product.

According to his results, the Zend Guard optimizer actually dropped the effectiveness and speed of rendering an image with his package - up to a 30% drop!

I enjoyed Friday's pro::PHP podcast interview with Andi Gutmans. With a name like pro::PHP how can I not like it? This was a less formal presentation than the Zend Framework webcast. Perhaps surprisingly informal for Andi, at least at the end. I thought Marcus Whitney did a great job selecting and asking questions. There were some technical difficulties in the live version. I hope those are worked out for the next broadcast, which I am looking forward to.

Now, the question is early February, or late February?

If you're confused about that last question, check out this post for the scoop. (According to a comment made by Andi, though, they're shooting for "mid-February")...