On LearnComputer.com there's a new post with their top five choices of PHP books they see as good resources for any developer wanting to improve their grasp of the language.

Continuing with our best-five-book series, today we are introducing our pick of the top 5 PHP books. Obviously, PHP has been around much longer than our other review subjects such as Android or HTML5, and there is a greater general variety of books to choose from.

Their list of top five covers a pretty good range of skillsets, but leans more towards the introductory level:

• Professional PHP6 (and yes, they mention that the title is "blatant false advertising" since PHP6 is nowhere to be found)
• Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites
• PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy
• Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice To Professional
• Head First PHP & MySQL

According to this new post on the PHPClasses.org blog, in the near future India will become the number one source for PHP developers in the world.

The number of Indian PHP developers has been growing at a large pace in the last few years, when compared to other countries. A few years ago, India was just one of the top ten countries with more PHP developers. Now India is number 2 and is almost surpassing United States, which is still number 1. This article presents a reflection about why this growth happened just in the latest years, as well what it means for the PHP world.

They talk about the size of the Indian PHP market and how many developers (certified and uncertified) are out there looking to fill the needs. By their own numbers, the PHPClasses.org has more job openings in India than any other country (with the US coming in second).

The results of the latest International PHP Poll are in for the question "Which is the best way to do PHP web testing?" Options included "Use SimpleTest Web tester", "Use element IDs or names to test links, forms and fields", and "Log HTTP requests in the application".

Coming out on top with 22.6 percent of the votes was the first item, though - "Use SimpleTest Web tester". Second was a close race with "All" and "None" only about 1 percent different ("None" being the higher).

Be sure to get your vote in for this week's poll question - "What Is the Top Mistake That PHP Coders Commit?" Options for this poll include "Not escaping entities and SQL input", "Syntax errors", and "Not using a Framework".

The results of the latest International PHP Poll are in for the question "Which is the best way to do PHP web testing?" Options included "Use SimpleTest Web tester", "Use element IDs or names to test links, forms and fields", and "Log HTTP requests in the application".

Coming out on top with 22.6 percent of the votes was the first item, though - "Use SimpleTest Web tester". Second was a close race with "All" and "None" only about 1 percent different ("None" being the higher).

Be sure to get your vote in for this week's poll question - "What Is the Top Mistake That PHP Coders Commit?" Options for this poll include "Not escaping entities and SQL input", "Syntax errors", and "Not using a Framework".

New to the A/R/T article repository from php|architect today is this look at the "Top Five PHP Mistakes" from Marco Tabini.

These topics have been beaten to death, and will likely continue to be beaten well after their bones have turned to dust. However, I have never had the opportunity to explore some aspects of PHP that obviously are mistakes-not just to understand their origin, but to analyze their impact on PHP and the way they have been dealt with.

His list of mistakes is:

• Objects in PHP 4
• Function Naming Consistency
• Safe Mode and Magic Quotes
• Register Globals
• Lack of Unicode Support

Under each he explains them, noting why they are important enough to mention is the list. He does, however, end on a bit lighter note - the PHP, for all its problems and woes, is just like any other laugnage out there. It has its problems, but its learned from them and, as Marco puts it "has grown because of them".

New to the A/R/T article repository from php|architect today is this look at the "Top Five PHP Mistakes" from Marco Tabini.

These topics have been beaten to death, and will likely continue to be beaten well after their bones have turned to dust. However, I have never had the opportunity to explore some aspects of PHP that obviously are mistakes-not just to understand their origin, but to analyze their impact on PHP and the way they have been dealt with.

His list of mistakes is:

• Objects in PHP 4
• Function Naming Consistency
• Safe Mode and Magic Quotes
• Register Globals
• Lack of Unicode Support

Under each he explains them, noting why they are important enough to mention is the list. He does, however, end on a bit lighter note - the PHP, for all its problems and woes, is just like any other laugnage out there. It has its problems, but its learned from them and, as Marco puts it "has grown because of them".

The International PHP Magazine has conducted a poll over on their website, asking visitors what their top considerations were for choosing and working with a CMS. They've posted the results of that poll today.

The options provided for the poll were:

• How is it licensed?
• What is the language/environment?
• How long has it been around?
• Is it actively developed?
• Who is using it?
• Is there support?

The results show an overpowering victory for the "actively developed" category, with the licensing and language requirements tying for second place. The option the least number of people cared about? Who was using it...

The International PHP Magazine has conducted a poll over on their website, asking visitors what their top considerations were for choosing and working with a CMS. They've posted the results of that poll today.

The options provided for the poll were:

• How is it licensed?
• What is the language/environment?
• How long has it been around?
• Is it actively developed?
• Who is using it?
• Is there support?

The results show an overpowering victory for the "actively developed" category, with the licensing and language requirements tying for second place. The option the least number of people cared about? Who was using it...

PEAR, the large repository of useful PHP libraries, is steadily growing even more in popularity. The PEAR server packages introduced have made it even easier for people to share their own libraries with the world. Unfortunately, all of this useful code doesn't come without a few issues, and in this new blog post, Lukas Smith mentions the top five packages with the most number of bug reports.

As of the time of this post, the top five are:

• Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer
• SOAP
• HTML_QuickForm
• Mail_Mime
• PhpDocumentor

PEAR, the large repository of useful PHP libraries, is steadily growing even more in popularity. The PEAR server packages introduced have made it even easier for people to share their own libraries with the world. Unfortunately, all of this useful code doesn't come without a few issues, and in this new blog post, Lukas Smith mentions the top five packages with the most number of bug reports.

As of the time of this post, the top five are:

• Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer
• SOAP
• HTML_QuickForm
• Mail_Mime
• PhpDocumentor