On the Zend Framework blog they've posted an announcement about the release of the latest version of their framework, the Zend Framework v3.

After 17 months of effort, hundreds of releases, tens of thousands of commits by hundreds of contributors, and millions of installs, we're pleased to announce the immediate availability of Zend Framework 3.

[...] For Zend Framework 2 MVC users, the differences are subtle. [...] Migration from version 2 to version 3 was at the top of our minds, and we have provided a number of forwards compatibility features over the course of ZF3 development, and written migration guides to help you navigate the changes.

They also mention updates to the skeleton application for this latest release including the work they've done to make the framework and its components more isolated and have fewer dependencies.

An announcement has been made on the Zend Framework blog today about a massive repository rename that will be happening May 3rd, 2016 to move away from the "zf2" naming.

In contrast to Zend Framework 2, which was a complete rewrite and break with the architecture of Zend Framework 1, the Zend Framework 3 initiative is more of an evolutionary change. [...] Another way of putting it: changes to the main repository are happening incrementally, and version 3 will just be a new major version update within the existing repository. However, such evolutionary change poses a slight logistical problem: the repository is currently named "zf2".

In order to make the change to Zend Framework 3 (and beyond) simpler, the repository will be renamed to "zendframework" instead. In the current configurations this namespace already exists and points to the correct locations so, ideally, no changes will need to be made on the Composer installations of current users - just updates to git remote entries to point to the new locations.

In this post to his site Matthew Weier O'Phinney talks about a change in the Zend Framework ZendMVC package to deprecate the ServiceLocatorAware interface and some of the unexpected backlash of it.

A month or two ago, we pushed a new release of zend-mvc that provides a number of forwards-compatibility features to help users prepare their applications for the upcoming v3 release.

One of those was, evidently, quite controversial: in v3, zend-servicemanager no longer defines the ServiceLocatorAwareInterface, and this particular release of zend-mvc raises deprecation notices when you attempt to inject a service locator into application services, or pull a service locator within your controllers.

He shares some of the "constructive" feedback they received when they made the change, most importantly asking for a justification for the change. He then goes through their thinking behind the change, some of its original intent and how it allowed for "dependency hiding" in its use. He gets into some detailed code examples for this last point, some of the errors that could happen as a result and other issues (like no type safety and the brittleness of using a service locator).

On the Zend Framework blog they've posted the roadmap and latest updates on the work being done for the next major version of the framework: Zend Framework 3.

In October, while at ZendCon, I presented a talk on Zend Framework 3 entitled "Components, PSR-7, and Middleware: Zend Framework 3." You can view it online, but this post discusses current status, details some decisions, and points to the work still to be done. It's a long read; grab a warm beverage, maybe some popcorn, and take your time.

They start by outlining some of the major concepts that ZF3 integrates and are key to how it will handle requests:

• the component-based system it's built on, making major use of Composer-style packages and installation techniques
• using the PSR-7 standard for handling of HTTP requests and responses
• the use of middleware to modify the request/response and add logic

Finally, they get into the overall view and roadmap for the framework. They talk about the ServiceManager/EventManager, the role middleware plays in the request dispatching and the goal of reducing dependencies. The post ends with a look at the improvements they're striving for with new and better documentation and the next steps in the roadmap for the coming months.

Matthew Weier O'Phinney has a recent post about recent work that's been done to split up the componenents in Zend Framework 2 into their own repositories and linked as dependencies.

Today we accomplished one of the major goals towards Zend Framework 3: splitting the various components into their own repositories. This proved to be a huge challenge, due to the amount of history in our repository (the git repository has history going back to 2009, around the time ZF 1.8 was released!), and the goals we had for what component repositories should look like. This is the story of how we made it happen.

Matthew talks about the methods that were used to split things apart, even more so than they already were. While the components could be installed separately before, the methods used to get there were "cringeworthy". He talks about the different methods they've tried and the version bump issue that came with them, even when no changes were present. He talks about the ultimate goal of the refactor and the techniques to get there - a combination of grafts, subtree, subdirectory-filter and tree-filter through git. He covers some of the "stumbling blocks" they hit along the way including empty merge commits. The end result was a one-line command that could be executed and split out the provided component (well, with a lot of help behind the scenes).

He ends the post talking about the speed of the extraction process (hint: parallel processing is a happy thing), the ultimate results of the entire framework being split and a few lessons they learned along the way.

The Zend Framework project has a new post to their blog today officially announcing the roadmap for version three of the popular PHP framework.

The most often-asked questions we get around the Zend Framework project include: Where is Zend Framework heading? When will Zend Framework 3 be released? What changes and enhancements should we expect? Since inception, our goal for Zend Framework has been to further the art of PHP and ensure our users concentrate on the business logic of their application rather than wasting time reinventing the plumbing. The plumbing is Zend Framework’s job.

We have built an incredibly powerful framework with Zend Framework 2 that met its key goals of flexibility, consistency and testability. However, the world has changed since ZF2 was released, and the project needs to move with the times. With that in mind, we have gathered feedback from our users and core contributors to map the path forward. Zend Framework 3 will be an evolution from ZF2, concentrating on simplicity, reusability, and performance.

The post lists out a few of the things involved in this roadmap including separating components into individual, versioned projects and embracing the concept and functionality of middleware. If you'd like to get involved or just find out about the latest on this upcoming version, be sure you either join the zf-contributors mailing list or come to the #zftalk.dev channel on the Freenode IRC network.

Manuel Stosic has a new post today talking about the upcoming Zend Framework v3 (not "coming soon", but coming) and three places you can follow to keep up on the latest in this version as it develops.

ZF3 is not close around the corner. It's still many, many months ahead. But there are reasons why you should bother and get information about ZF3 as soon as possible. If you understand why changes are introduced - and most of them are explained, some will be explained at a later point i guess - then you can spot errors in todays code already! You can improve your current code by knowing what's going to be "in" a couple of months away.

The three resources he points to are the Google Moderator group for ideas around the framework, issues on the Github repository tagged for ZF3 and a series of planned Google Hangouts where core developers will talk about the work on this new version and answer questions from those watching.