Fabien Potencier has a new post to the symfony framework's blog today talking about some more of the "little things" they've added to the latest version of the framework.

Symfony 1.2 already comes with a lot of great new features but smaller things also matter a lot. Here is yet another post about small things we have recently added to symfony 1.2.

The list includes the ability to generate a URL in an action using the routing object, new methods in the form object that make it simpler to use in templates and an update to the Phing/Propel interface to help with debugging.

Off of the Avatar Financial site, there's a great list they've created to share a few things they've learned around a popular PHP framework - more specifically 21 things they've learned about CakePHP.

CakePHP is very new, so documentation beyond the basics is a bit sparse in areas. I built this website entirely using CakePHP and took notes along the way to share with others. While some of these items can be found in obvious places like the manual, others required a bit of elbow grease to figure out. My name is Matt Inman and your feedback is welcome, feel free to email me with questions or comments.

Things learned that are on the list include:

• Easily creating static pages
• Static pages - Adjusting other data sent to the layout
• Viewing the SQL queries that are running behind the scenes
• Using bake.php
• Complex model validation
• Creating a controller that uses other models
• Call exit() after redirecting

and many more. There's lots of helpful tips here, especially if you're new to CakePHP and want that extra leg up.

On Marco Tabini's blog today, there's one of his traditionaly long posts dealing, this time, with "Five things you can do for PHP".

I often hear comments like "I wish I could contribute to PHP… but I really (don't have time|don't have the knowledge|am too shy|insert your favourite meaningless excuse here)".

Contributing to PHP is, I think, perhaps simpler than ordering a hot beverage* at Starbucks. It is, for sure, simpler than most people seem to think, and it requires no skills beyond being… a PHP developer (which is, of course, different from being a "developer of PHP").

If you don't believe me, consider this quick lists of things you can to help improve PHP today.

Items in the list include: "File a bug", "Learn more about what PHP has to offer", and "Celebrate those who work on PHP". He talks about these and the other two in the list in detail, giving more information on how you can get involved. You don't have to work on the PHP core to contribute to the project - all you need to do is have a will to help and a little bit of time...