On PHPBuilder.com Jason Gilmore has posted a first peek at Zend Framework 2, an upcoming reworking of the popular framework with PHP 5.3-centric features.

Version 2.0 seeks to improve upon the current release in a number of ways, focusing on making it easier to get started using the framework, improving performance, and fully embracing the latest PHP language enhancements made available to version 5.3. [...] Although the official release won't be out for several more months, it never hurts to take an early look at what the future holds for a technology used by countless PHP developers around the globe. In this article I'll present a meandering introduction to the key version 2.0 features that I find particularly compelling.

He starts with a brief tutorial on getting the latest version of ZF2 from the git repository and creating basic project. The changes in the framework have fallen into a "rewrite only where it makes sense" mentality and changes have really only been made transparently to the backend or as new features/components like module management and Doctrine 2 integration. He also points out a few resources you can use to keep up to date on the latest from the framework including the changelog, mailing list and the ZF2 blog.

Rob Allen has a new post with a few introductory notes about the upcoming Zend_Application component of the Zend Framework that's coming and (if all goes well) will be deployed with the 1.8 version of the framework.

Zend_Application is now in the incubator and being actively developed for version 1.8 of Zend Framework. I've had a little play using it with a standard ZF application with no modules and this is what I've worked out so far. [...] Zend_Application is intended to make bootstrapping your application easier, presumably with less code.

He looks specifically at the bootstraping aspect of the component and comes up with an example Bootstrap.php file that sets up a configuration, a database resource, a view object and the location and information for the front controller. Another boostrap example shows how you can use a configuration file to do it similarly but more flexibly.

Evert Pot has taken a second look at the popular unit testing software for PHP - PHPUnit.

Somewhere in 2007 I had a deep dive into PHPUnit, and there were a couple of things that bugged me. Looking into it again, it turns out that since then everything has been fixed, making it perfect for integrating it into sabredav. Most of the protocol-level WebDAV stuff is all tested with litmus, but having good unit tests will help ensuring a high quality of the inner business logic.

He also includes a few "highlights" (pleasant things) he found in this second look like a bootstrap setting, a more perfected code coverage analysis and the inclusion of an XML config file to define them all.

It's 2009 and several in the PHP community have already started posting their own looks back at last year - here's the list so far:

• Jani Hartikainen: Best of 2008
• Sara Golemon: 2008 Lookback
• Ivo Jansch: Goodbye 2008!
• Stefan Koopmanschap: A look back
• Web Builder Zone: A Year In Retrospect - Web Builder Zone's Top 10 For 2008
• Matthew Weier O'Phinney: 2008: The year in review
• Zend Developer Zone: Year-End Conference Round-Up
• Rob Allen: 2008 end-of-year wrap-up
• Matthew Turland: Another Year, Another Summary
• Travis Swicegood: 2008: a retrospective
• Andi Gutmans: Happy New Year!
• Michelangelo van Dam: Looking back to 2008
• Keith Casey: 2008 Year End Summary
• Chuck Burgess: Looking Back...2008

Keep checking back for more great posts as they're added! Have a post you want on the list? let us know!

2008 was a great year for the PHP community - lots of growth, enhancements and improvements have lead us to where we are today. The language is stronger than ever and attracting more developers than it ever has. Let's take a look at just some of the things that made 2008 what it was:

• Plenty of criticism and comparisons of PHP
• The rise in popularity of the elePHPants
• Growth in the PHP Women group (like the article contest and their 2nd brithday)
• 2008 - the Year of the Framework
• PEAR Bug Traige event
• Zend Framework's Dojo and AMF integration
• A growing emphasis on unit testing and debugging
• The last release in the PHP 4 series
• Ibuildings launches their Center for Expertise (and Cal Evans is appointed Director)
• Several major companies - like Microsoft and Adobe - show more interest in the PHP community
• Lukas Smith launched his emPHPower iniative
• php|architect launched their C7Y community website
• this site made the move to the Solar Framework
• PHPers participated once again in Google's Summer of Code
• PEAR elctions were held
• The Great Namespace Debate of 2008
• Plenty of podcasts were released - PHP Abstract and the P3 Podcast
• php|architect got a major overhaul of the site, the magazine and the structure of the company
• Zend launched a new certification - Zend Framework Certified Engineer
• Zend buyout rumors (no, it didn't happen)
• the elePHPant World Tour
• Continuing development on PHP 5.3

Conferences

• CakeFest
• PHP Brasil
• PHP London
• Dutch PHP Conference
• Zend/PHP Conference & Expo
• php|tek
• php|works/PyWorks
• PHP Quebec
• PHP Appalachia
• FrOSCon
• International PHP Conference
• PHP Camp
• OpenExpo
• PHP North West
• SymfonyCamp
• PHP Barcelona
• PHP Security Camp

Our own job postings

• Included companies like: CNet Networks, Ibuildings, Ning, InvestorGuide.com, Yahoo! and Schematic
• In places like: Paris, UK, Nashville, Barcelona, New York, Zurich, Dallas and Chicago

In a recent post to the Ask About PHP blog, there's a quick "first look" at the CakePHP framework from a beginner's perspective.

Finally, I found some time to take CakePHP for a spin. I've heard some really good things about it, and I've been trying to get some time to try it out. I installed the framework and went through the tutorial on building a simple blog application. I have to say I'm quite impressed.

The post briefly introduces the Model-View-Controller method the framework follows and shows some of the features/benefits it brings with it - the low entry level, its speed, and whether or not it makes for a good "first framework" for other developers.

This new post on the ThinkPHP blog (from Sarah Hermann) talks about some of her first experiences with the popular IDE from Zend, Zend Studio for Eclipse:

The last few days I've started working with Zend Studio for Eclipse. At first view I didn't miss anything which I've used in Zend Studio 5.5 and the IDE looks very good. [...] Overall I think Zend Studio for Eclipse is a great tool to develop PHP applications. With a large amount of plugins, Eclipse provides a platform which gives the possibilty to develop a whole application within one tool, that's a great benefit.

Most of the issues that she came across from the transition were minor things - keystrokes for shortcuts changed, slowness with the breakpoints - nothing that would stop her from dropping it and going back to the regular Zend Studio 5.5.

In his latest blog post Davey Shafik takes a look back at this past year, 2006, and some of the happenings he experienced during that time.

The yearly look back is now a tradition in the PHP community, I decided this year to lead the pack instead of just hopping on the bandwagon. Of course, it's not official until Derick provides his excellent look back on internals.

There's mentions of his work with the Zend Framework, his book (the Zend Study Guide), and much more. Check out the full post if you'd like to catch up...

Sara Golemon has posted her own look back at the year of 2006 in the PHP:

Well, Davey Shafik started us off with his year-end wrapup so I'll follow suit with mine. The thoughts below are mine and mildly influenced by alcohol. They represent a foggy review of how I experienced the year through the imperfect recollection of mailing list archives.

She covers each month, looking at the people, events, and releases that happened in each. Lots of activity happened on the mailing lists mirroring the happenings in the rest of the PHP community. Check out her great post for the full happenings of the year.

Bothered by the ugly way Xdebug stack traces were turing out, Derick Rethans has created a script to fix that.

I've always been annoyed by the way how Xdebug's stack traces looked liked. So I spend some time on making them look better. I will show the differences according to the following script.

The simple script takes the output and adds a bit of formatting, stripping down the information to make it a bit more clear. Check out the before and after shots to see the difference.