Rudy Nappee has just finished what he calls the hardest week in his Google Summer of Code project - work on the PDF output methods:

Here was the hardest GSoC week ! I wrote a big part of the PDF output and both the themes "phppdf" (each PHP manual part in a file) and "phpbigpdf" (a big PDF file with all the sections).

Rudy's project for the GSoC is to create a Docbook renderer that can take in a standard Docbook file and output it into multiple formats. This past week saw the development of the PDF output method but he's also created methods for making a CHM (Windows help file) and a manpage output format. You can keep up with his latest progress on his blog.

Besides the more official list of projects happening for this year's Google Summer of Code, there's also been a lot of buzz in the community about the projects and calls for developers to help out on their project of choice. Here's just a few:

• Jay Pipes on some of the projects for MySQL Forge
• The PHP-GTK Community site on their project
• Marcus Borger encouraging participation in this year's GSoC
• Sara Golemon's pointing developers in the right direction
• A proposal from the thyphp.com site for a WordPress category suggestor
• Derick Rethans mentioning his "pet peeve", the optimizer for APC
• Elizabeth Smith promoting participation in any of the list of ideas

Keep up to date on the happenings on each of the projects in the PHP group on this page on the PHP.net wiki.

David Coallier is looking for a few good men (women, children, pets who can code, etc) to join up with the PHP development group for this year's Google Summer of Code to help with the various ideas they've come up with.

Hello everyone, as mentioned a few weeks ago the most awaited Google Summer of Code is back again this year. This being said, once again the PHP Project has been accepted and we have started posting our list of ideas (http://wiki.php.net/gsoc/2008).

Some of the projects proposed include:

• PECL, website improvements and Windows Build Support
• Automatic Code Checker
• Implement Unicode into PHP 6
• Build Infrastructure and macro bindings for writing extension in D
• Rewrite the run-tests.php script
• PhD: The PHP based Docbook renderer

Be sure to check out the full list and see where you might want to get involved!

Sebastian Bergmann has provided a pointer to the update Mike has posted concerning the Google Summer of Code project he's working on - implementing mutation testing in PHPUnit.

From Mike's update:

The most recent version committed to the mutation_testing branch is in a testable state. I would encourage anyone interested to try out the new mutation testing feature in this branch.

You can get complete information about the project - its methods and goals - from this page on the PHPUnit wiki. If you'd like to get this new code a try and see what his mutation testing is all about, here's a link to the subversion repository to grab the latest copy.

If you've been looking for more information on the phpAspect project but have been sad to note it having fallen by the wayside, you'll be happy to know that Willliam Candillon is alive and well and so is the project!

The first news concerns the windows developers, the windows build of PHP_Parse_Tree is finally available (click here to download)! [...] The second news is that my proposal "phpAspect eclipse plugin" for the Google Summer of Code 2007 under the mentoring of Gilles Vanwormhoudt has been accepted!

Be sure to keep an eye on the project's website and their Summer of Code page to keep up with the latest.

Jan Schneider has a new blog post today concerning the acceptance of three projects (based on the Horde Project) into the Google "Summer of Code" program for this year.

Here's some of the details:

• Jonathan Burchfield's LDAP module for the Horde Application Framework to include full read/write functionality when completed
• Soumyadip Modak's development of a Horde bootable Live CD with a complete install of all Groupware modules Horde.
• Luciano Ramalho's "Wandering Books" application to allow anyone to turn their own library into a lending library quickly and easily.