The Laravel Podcast, hosted by Matt Stauffer (with regular guests Taylor Otwell and Jeffrey Way) has posted their latest episode today - Episode #30: Trouble, Trouble, Trouble....

In this episode, the crew discusses architecture driven religious wars and the recent drama surrounding Apple Music.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player, by downloading the mp3 or by subscribing to their feed to get this and future episodes as they're released. Be sure to also follow them on Twitter for announcements when new episodes are released.

The Laravel podcast has posted their latest episode today, Episode #20 - The War on CRUD with host Shawn McCool.

We talk about configuration and queue updates, architecture and CRUD apps, choosing the right persistence solution, and a lot more.

You can catch this latest episode either though the in-page audio player or by watching the Google Hangouts recording it was pulled from. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed.

The PHP Town Hall podcast has released their latest episode - Episode #13, PHP Internals, Service-orientated Architecture and Language Wars:

Ben, Zack K. and Phil discuss the difference between PHP’s organisational structure and lack of BDFL with that of Rails, or Linux. We then discuss service-orientated architecture a little and move onto how you should not box yourself into a single programming language - on your CV or in general as a programmer.

You can listen to this latest post either through the in-page player, by downloading the mp3 or by subscribing to their feed.

In this new post to the PHPClasses.org blog Manuel Lemos talks some about the recent introduction of PHP into Google's App Engine offerings.

During Google I/O 2013 event a Google manager said PHP runs on 75% of the Web sites. So they decided to finally support PHP as in their AppEngine hosting service. Read this article to understand why this puts an end to years of false claims that PHP was losing market, as well what it means to Web developers using PHP or other languages.

He looks at the App Engine PHP offering and looks at whether or not its a good platform to use for hosting your application. He points out some advantages and disadvantages (including no local file system access and no remote resource access). He also includes five reasons why the "web platform war is over" and why PHP has come out victorious:

• Google Knows Because They Crawl the Whole Web
• Google Does Not Influence Web Developers so much
• Wordpress is the Dominant Blog Platform (not Blogger)
• Programming Does Not Have to Be Beautiful
• PHP Detractors Have the Wrong Focus

He admits, though, that PHP may not be dominant forever - it's not perfect, but there will always be a need for something that does what it can do (and does it well).

On the Udemy blog there's a new post with a large infographic showing "who reigns supreme" comparing Ruby, Python and PHP (don't worry, this isn't flamebait...it's actual good stats comparing the state of these three languages).

Just as the Japanese, Spanish and French languages are uniquely different, programming languages also have their variations, some more popular and easier to use than others. With the recent introduction of some new ones, there is a 'war' of modern day languages. What's easier and faster to use is not always the best option.

The graphic includes stats like:

• Usability ratings
• Popularity in the TIOBE index
• How much it's discussed (from the IEEE Spectrum, IRC)
• The number of open job postings
• Average run time/lines of code

Check out the full post for more interesting data.

It seems like one of these sort of (opinion) articles pops up every once and a while, and they always cause their share of controversy. This new post on NetTuts.com comparing PHP and Ruby is no different (over 70 comments and counting).

It’s time; queue the "Going the Distance" theme from Rocky. In the red ring: Envato developer extraordinaire, Ryan Allen, who built the original FlashDen with his cold bare hands. In the blue corner: Michael Wales, a well known member in the PHP and CodeIgniter communities. The battle? PHP vs. Ruby. Fight!

The two contenders in this "fight" were asked the same questions and answers from both sides are shared to help balance things out. The questions were things like:

• Do you feel that your language is more suited to beginners or advanced users?
• Many PHP developers move on to Ruby after a few years. Have you found this to be the case, and, if so, why do you think it’s so common?
• Are there instances when you might choose to use Ruby for one project, and PHP for another?
• What specifically does your language have that the other does not -- if anything?
• How does Ruby or PHP’s community compare to the other?

Be sure to check out the comments - there's lots of good thoughts from the communities on both sides there too.

It seems like every time you turn around, there's always someone going on about the "latest and greatest" framework that's just popped up and how it'll change the way you write your code. Of course, not all of them are all their cracked up to be, and in his new post Jared White looks at some of the things they'd need to be to make it.

He starts with a clean slate, looking first at what a framework really is, it's usefulness, and a few of the general issues that surround their use. Also, based on the latest PHP stats (from Nexen.net), the gap between the use of PHP4 and PHP5 is still very large, making developing frameworks a bit more tricky.

Jared also lists out three objectives that the future of PHP will have to hold to make this gap get any smaller (and make developing applications a simpler process). Basically:

• adoption for PHP 5.1+ needs to increase dramatically
• standardized design patterns need to be established
• a general need for interoperability between frameworks/applications.

It seems like every time you turn around, there's always someone going on about the "latest and greatest" framework that's just popped up and how it'll change the way you write your code. Of course, not all of them are all their cracked up to be, and in his new post Jared White looks at some of the things they'd need to be to make it.

He starts with a clean slate, looking first at what a framework really is, it's usefulness, and a few of the general issues that surround their use. Also, based on the latest PHP stats (from Nexen.net), the gap between the use of PHP4 and PHP5 is still very large, making developing frameworks a bit more tricky.

Jared also lists out three objectives that the future of PHP will have to hold to make this gap get any smaller (and make developing applications a simpler process). Basically:

• adoption for PHP 5.1+ needs to increase dramatically
• standardized design patterns need to be established
• a general need for interoperability between frameworks/applications.

Sandro Groganz talks in this post on his blog about templating and why it really matters all that much (and a mention of the new template system for eZ publish).

Those with some years of experience in the software business know: the implementation or decision upon a template engine is always good for flame wars.

Why? Templates are such a basic technology of a CMS, a must-have and not really something sexy. Those who hoped to make templates sexy, invented XSLT.

So why? Because it is a basic technology!

He lists a few of the reasons there is such a "flame war" going on about templates - the love/hate relationship of developers that have had to work with templating systems already in place, the difference in thinking between developers and designers about what the template should be. He gives the eZ publish template system as an example of this dicotimy, noting that, when it all really comes down to it, the facts are what should speak, not opinions/emotions.

Sandro Groganz talks in this post on his blog about templating and why it really matters all that much (and a mention of the new template system for eZ publish).

Those with some years of experience in the software business know: the implementation or decision upon a template engine is always good for flame wars.

Why? Templates are such a basic technology of a CMS, a must-have and not really something sexy. Those who hoped to make templates sexy, invented XSLT.

So why? Because it is a basic technology!

He lists a few of the reasons there is such a "flame war" going on about templates - the love/hate relationship of developers that have had to work with templating systems already in place, the difference in thinking between developers and designers about what the template should be. He gives the eZ publish template system as an example of this dicotimy, noting that, when it all really comes down to it, the facts are what should speak, not opinions/emotions.