The Zend Framework blog has posted their official announcement of the release of Expressive version 3, the latest major release for the Zend Framework-based microframework based around PSR-15 middleware.

Expressive 3 embraces modern PHP, and requires PHP 7.1 or higher. Strong type-hinting, including return type hints, make both our job and your job easier and more predictable. The ability to use all modern PHP features helps us deliver a solid base for your application.

Expressive 3 provides full support for the PSR-15 (Middleware and Request Handlers) standard. [...] Expressive 3 massively refactors its internals as well. [...] Expressive 3 provides more command line tooling and tooling improvements in order to make developing your application easier.

[...] Finally, we recognize that Expressive has changed massively between versions 1 and 3, while simultaneously keeping its primary API stable and unchanged. However, to help users find the information they need for the version they run, we have rolled out versioned documentation, with each version providing only information specific to its release cycle.

The post also lists out some of the new components including zend-expressive-session, zend-expressive-csrf and zend-expressive-hal. There's also links to more information about upgrading, community resources and a "thank you" section to several people that helped get the project to this version 3 release.

On the Symfony blog there's a post that reminds you, at a time of year when giving is top of mind of a lot of people, to say thank you to the libraries you depend on.

If you're like me, you build apps that depend on a lot of great PHP libraries that are maintained by countless talented developers. That's amazing! The PHP community has come so far! And while I try my best to contribute back, it's tough to show appreciation for all these efforts.

Sometimes, I just want to send some ???? and shout THANKS!

To make it easier, they've released the Thanks composer plugin that will star every package your project depends on automatically to show them your appreciation. It may seem like a little thing to do but project maintainers love to know that their work is appreciated. If you want to show even more appreciation consider emailing the team or individuals working on the project and let them know.

It's easy to get discouraged when working on an Open Source project and hearing back from the users of the library can do wonders for the maintainers and contributors.

Kenny Katzgrau has a new post with the top ten Sparks (CodeIgniter packages) for the year of 2011:

It’s a moderately simple app that provides a vehicle for quickly dropping other developers’ code in your codebase. Many of the packages on GetSparks are very well maintained. I am continually impressed by the amount of effort spark developers pour into their submissions when I peruse the site and try new packages out. [...] GetSparks has almost clocked 50,000 package downloads at this point, but there are handful of sparks that have really stood out in terms of popularity.

Packages in the top ten list by popularity include (in no particular order) php-activerecord, template, gravatar_helper and markdown. He also thanks a few of the folks that have made the GetSparks.org site what it is.

With this time of year always comes the holiday season, and us here at PHPDeveloper.org just want to wish everyone out there a happy holidays, no matter what you're celebrating.

The PHP community has seen a lot of things this year, including major leaps forward in the functionality of our favorite language and the forming of the Web 2.0 movement, strengthing PHP's foothold in the Open Source development community even more.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this site in the past year - we couldn't do it without you. And many thanks to all of the great sites out there in the community for keeping their thoughts and projects going.

So, happy holidays and here's to looking forward to a great 2006 (and PHP6!)

With this time of year always comes the holiday season, and us here at PHPDeveloper.org just want to wish everyone out there a happy holidays, no matter what you're celebrating.

The PHP community has seen a lot of things this year, including major leaps forward in the functionality of our favorite language and the forming of the Web 2.0 movement, strengthing PHP's foothold in the Open Source development community even more.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this site in the past year - we couldn't do it without you. And many thanks to all of the great sites out there in the community for keeping their thoughts and projects going.

So, happy holidays and here's to looking forward to a great 2006 (and PHP6!)