Matthew Weier O'Phinney and Lee Brimelow will be giving a free webinar tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct 22nd) covering the Zend_Amf component of the Zend Framework.

They'll go over the Zend Framework and the Zend AMF module that allows PHP developers to connect Flex applications to Zend Framework powered applications using AMF. You have to register for the e-seminar to attend.

You can find out more about using Flex and the Zend Framework together in this section of the Adobe website.

Eli White has written up a new post about his opinions on certifications (and his habits relating them when it comes to resume reviews).

As it stands, I've shocked more than my share of people in the past when I've mentioned my stance on certifications for programmers. Specifically, when I have a pile of resumes in front of me, and I'm giving them an initial pass to sort them apart, I take any that mention their programming certifications, and sort them to the bottom.

He justification is that most of the certifications out there are pretty much useless and that, from his experience, those that list them on their resume are using it to appear more qualified.

So what is it that's so wrong with the certifications in the first place? Simply put, they prove nothing to me. They only prove that you could cram and pass a multiple choice test.

But, as he notes, programming is more about art than knowing the order of the arguments in str_replace. He illustrates his other point, "passing - yes but by how much?" with how the Zend Certified Engineer exam is handled. You get a pass or fail and you only know what you didn't do so well on if you fail.

On the Zend Developer Zone Cal Evans points out some of the upcoming Flex tour dates to local groups all around the United States and Canada.

The Adobe technical evangelism team will be hitting the road in October talking about our recent announcement with Zend. PHP developers who are interested in learning about Flex and Zend should join Kevin Hoyt, Danny Dura, Ryan Stewart and Christophe Coenraets as they show developers how to get started with Adobe Flex, Adobe AIR and Zend.

Check out this list of locations to find one near you to attend. They run from the first of October through the first part of November.

This recent article on the Redmond Developer News site looks at a partnership one of their largest local businesses, Microsoft, has with Zend and the work they're doing with PHP. They ask "what's next" for these two companies and their future of Microsoft in the community.

Despite speculation that Microsoft would make an announcement around its Silverlight runtime environment at last month's fourth annual Zend/PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon) in Santa Clara, Calif., the company kept a relatively low profile.

They do mention the collaboration that Zend and Microsoft have already done and note that going forward there will be more initiative to get Windows and PHP to work even better for desktop applications.

According to some statistics gathered by the Gartner Research group, PHP is trending more towards being found in the enterprise:

A recent Gartner Research study found that 10 percent of the PHP community are corporate IT developers, and predicted that during the next five years, that number will grow to 40 percent. That's good news for PHP developers looking for corporate gigs--and very good news for PHP tools maker Zend Technologies, which cited the Gartner finding at the Zend/PHP Conference last week as evidence of widespread, more strategic adoption of PHP in enterprises.

Much of this has to do with Zend's products and their placement in more enterprise settings as well as the collaborations they've created with several key big-name players like Adobe, IBM and Dojo (as a part of the Zend Framework). There's also a mention of some of Microsoft's initiatives in the PHP community including work on the FastCGI component and a SQL Server driver for PHP.

According to this news release from Ibuildings, Cal Evans (of Zend and the editor-in-chief of the Zend Developer Zone) will be taking on a new role as the Director of the Ibuildings Center of Expertise for PHP.

Ibuildings recently announced the launch of a PHP Centre of Expertise. The news has been received very positively by the PHP community worldwide. The centre will be led by Cal Evans, a world-renowned PHP expert. He is, among many other things, the editor-in-chief of one of the most important portals for PHP developers. In October Evans will move from his current residence in Nashville (Tennessee - US) to the Netherlands.

The goal of the Centre is to give the PHP community a boost through education, promotion of good coding standards and information about different methodologies (such as Agile programming) and much more. Check out this post on the Ibuildings blog for more information.

Check some comments from David Coallier too.

Zend made several announcements in the opening keynote of this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo including collaborations with Adobe, IBM and the Dojo project to further PHP's place in the online development community.

These announcements pertained to partnerships with these other companies on projects like bringing out-of-the-box Ajax functionality to the Zend Framework with Dojo and updates to the Zend Core and Zend Studio software. Also announced was the release of a new certification specifically for the Zend Framework - "Zend Certified Engineer for Zend Framework".

One of the major announcements, though, was Zend's efforts with Adobe to help make the connection between their powerful Flex environment and what PHP has to offer. The key to the integration lies in the AMFPHP (Action Message Format) tool that acts as a layer letting Flex and PHP talk. Zend and Adobe will also be, from this point on, creating links between the Zend Studio software and the Adobe Flex Builder software to help developers to help make the integration that much simpler.

You can find out more about their efforts on the Zend Framework website and the Adobe Flex pages on Adobe's developer website.

In a recent blog post Zoe Slattery took a look at opcodes in PHP, specifically related to performance increases.

After one particularly frustrating day [looking at how the Zend engine works] I asked a colleague (Andy Wharmby) about the issue I was looking at. Then a miracle happened - he'd not only looked at it but had documented it (and many other things) in a set of charts.

She has linked to the charts (Open Office format) for the results of some tests her friend had already run. They're a bit out of date and some parts might be inaccurate, but they're still a good start.

According to a new press release from Zend, they've expanded their training course line to include a few more topics - migration from PHP4 to PHP5 and an in-depth look at their Zend Studio for Eclipse IDE.

These courses further expand the portfolio of Zend training courses, which include PHP from introduction to advanced levels, as well as courses about PHP Security, creation of Rich Internet Applications, and the use of major Zend products.

Here's the details:

• Migrating Your Web Applications from PHP v4 to v5 - This webinar guides you through the basics of planning a migration, as well as discussing some of the tools to make the process easier, such as unit testing and PHPDoc. The current class will be held September 9th and 11th and will cost about $300 USD.
• Zend Studio for Eclipse - The Zend Studio for Eclipse Course is designed to provide PHP programmers with a practical, in-depth knowledge of the next generation tool in the Zend Studio IDE family. The current class will start August 25th and will run through September 5th. Cost for the class is about $800 USD.

On the Ibuildings blog, Soila Patajoki has posted about two upcoming events in the UK and Irish PHP communities.

Following the success of our two PHP seminars in London, we have decided to make it a tour and to visit other parts of the UK and Ireland as well. Next up are Leeds and Dublin - come and meet us in your city! Find out more about our events below.

The first is a talk on source control happening September 9th (as presented by Lorna Mitchell) and the second being a talk from Ivo Jansch in Dublin - "Enterprise PHP and Zend".

Check out the blog post for more information including how to register (do it before the Early Bird special ends and get a copy of CTO Ivo Jansch's book Guide to Enterprise PHP Development).