It has finally arrived, the brand new and most talked about version of PHP, the v5 ... with a new core of the latest
Zend Engine 2. Though its the final release of the version, it would still take another 7-8 months for the version to reach a stable status; but considering its huge response, it shouldn't be long before its adopted everywhere.
Here is the announcement by Andi Gutmans on
php.net yesterday.
quoting "Andi Gutmans"
Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:
- The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features.
- XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now
focused around the excellent libxml2 library (
http://www.xmlsoft.org/).
- A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as
PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and vice-versa.
- A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
- A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and
later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in addition
to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of MySQL's new
features, such as prepared statements.
- SQLite has been bundled with PHP. For more information on SQLite, please
visit their website (
http://www.sqlite.org/).
- Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access
low-level socket operations on streams.
- And lots more...
Zend has announced an
open challenge to all PHP pros, develop something great using PHP 5 and you will be handsomely rewarded. The contest entails development of a PHP application using the new OO features and appropriate use of the latest additions to v5. The application can be made as a team or as an individual, but teams are limited to 5 members only.
It is very obvious that the majority of points will be given on intelligent use of PHP 5's new features and implementing standard design patterns, including the usage of XML. This is very important as the Judges panel includes some very well known veterans from the PHP community.
The contest started on the 31st of May and would go on till September 19. The winners will be announced by the 2nd week of October. The Prizes are very luring, the grand one includes a shining new,
Dell Inspiron 600m laptop and Apple
iPod Minis. Other great prizes are also up for grabs, like Zend Studio, subscriptions from php|architect, etc.
So, why are you wasting your time here, the prizes are just too good to be missed for my blog ...
It seems like PHP 5's release candidate 3 will be the last of the series, so can we expect the final release soon? ... The answer is Yes! The final release is expected somewhere around mid of June. The new version promises to have some long awaited controls for better handling of objects. Though, I most excited about the inclusion of JAVA-like exception handling. The earlier version's had no such support; rather a nascent error handling mechanism was the sole weapon. With a shining new Zend 2 Engine, the version 5 promises a lot. Whether it delivers as expected, is yet to be seen..., but I among the hopeful ones.
