Latest Developments in PHP

Q: The Eclipse PHP development Tool (PDT) released in September 2007, who was behind and did those jobs?

ZEEV:PDT is the Eclipse project, but Zend plays a leading role.

Q: How does this relate to Zend Studio?

Zeev: We're doing three things at the same time. First, Zend Studio, we are selling this product. Second, PDT, for the vast open source community. Third, expand the function of PDT, play the commercial version.

Q: This means that PDT will not replace Zend Studio?

Zeev: Not at the moment. If we find all the changes on eclipse, we'll be full of worries.

Q: What are the benefits of eclipse?

Zeev: One of the main advantages is that there are many interfaces, and there are almost all of them. For example, Ajax and Javascrīpt. Users can also develop themselves. Another advantage is the easy implementation of standardization.

Q: What is the difference between commercial and free editions of Zend products?

Zeev: (in the commercial version) there are all, such as Cvs,subversion, XML and Java support, easy to install. There are some commercial interfaces that PDT does not have. Integrates with other Zend products to support Web services and special databases.

Q: Zend wants to work with Microsoft on PHP in Windows. What is the content of the cooperation? Have those common development parts? Why does Microsoft want to do this?

Zeev: The partnership has been established for almost a year. Microsoft has made up its mind to compete with other operating systems, especially Linux, as the target platform for PHP. So far, 99% of users have been built on Linux or Solaris platforms, because Windows is not good for PHP, and Microsoft wants to change that.

When we developed Zend, we also knew that most of the applications were used on Windows. Many Windows-based Internet users, in order to maintain competitiveness, but also need solutions, the more such users, the greater the demand. Our common goal with Microsoft is to make PHP work best under Windows.

Q: Is this a long-term project?

Zeev: Yes, most of it is done. I can say at best that PHP runs slower than Linux on Windows. But we will continue to improve.

............

Q: How is php now? PHP4 's support is over by the end of the year, but many people are worried that upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 will make a mistake?

zeev:php 5, I knew there would be a problem. This problem is not the problem of PHP itself. The previous version has been very good. Let's look at the evolution of PHP. By the PHP4, the user base is already very large.

The problem with upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 is the extent to which it is recognized. Many people think it is difficult to upgrade from PHP4 to PHP5. In your opinion, PHP4 is enough. Usually a technology does not develop when it is very useful, not only software, but other things as well. For example, for me, a three-year-old mobile phone is still very good, even if the slow point of benzene, I do not need to buy a new fancy phone, because my purpose is to call. are using the PHP4 people, holding the same mentality. Many people are also worried about the matching problem of upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5. This usually does not go wrong, but the problem is "usually", (not always). A lot of thorough testing will be done after the conversion. These reasons together-PHP4 very useful, worried about the matching problem, coupled with the need for a lot of testing, enough to block the implementation of PHP5.

So, the support for PHP4 will not end at the end of the year, but extend to next August. The update for security (for PHP4) will continue. Even now, many features are not new to PHP4. The new features in PHP5 have been around for a while.

Q: Why do we now upgrade to PHP5 instead of waiting for PHP6?

Zeev: Good question. First we are currently in the middle of development: one side to support the operation of the PHP4, the other side PHP6 has not come. Second--I want to be very small to express the following sentences--the matching trench between PHP5 and PHP6 is great. Because the changes in the Unicode encoding and the basic elements of the language are likely to appear mismatched! What we do in PHP6 is not so much "improvement" as "revolution". Minimizing the mismatch is a difficult task. Maybe we'll provide some automated porting tools.

Jumping from PHP4 to PHP6 is much more painful than rising from PHP4 to PHP5 and then to PHP6! But the problem comes, and we're going to fix it. We are dealing with it carefully and taking lessons from PHP5 's promotion, we haven't made a final decision yet, but we will try to make the transition from 5 to 6 as smooth as possible. At present, it is meaningless to wait for PHP6 to go out and upgrade. PHP6 at least one year to go.

Q: When I released the PHP5, I was very impressed with the opcode-caches aspect of releasing the presence. Are you always talking about the problem if it doesn't work out?

Zeev: Maybe. Many companies did not use it when it was launched (so they did not take it seriously). But since 2004 PHP5, many companies have started to use, whether open-source or commercial (opcode-caches products), the problem may come out. Opcode-caches is very important when the system is built. If it doesn't work, you might want to use two more servers.

Q: Will you pay attention to this in PHP6? , what are the changes?

Zeev: In PHP6, APC (translator Note: alternative PHP Cache) will be part of PHP. APC will also become a commercial product of Zend.

Q: You just mentioned the question of Unicode, what changes will it make in PHP6? What are we looking forward to?

Zeev: Honestly, I haven't had time to think about it. It's not that we don't want to implement it, but the question is whether it's worth discussing now that the PHP6 project has just been proposed.

To give a simple example "Name Spaces", over the past three or four years, we had wanted to implement it in PHP5, but lacked the time. Now we turn the original decision order upside down and put "Name Spaces" in the back. We have done a good job on php-namespaces and we are going to integrate it into the PHP6, but now consider putting it in the PHP5.3 first. According to the current situation, (PHP5.3) will be available in the first quarter of next year, but it may change. "Namespaces" is likely to be introduced as well, and we don't want to let such an important function wait for PHP6, and we are not sure when PHP6 will be able to come out.

When these important issues are fulfilled, we have time to deal with Unicode and some changes to the PHP configuration, such as global variables (registered Globals) and so on. When the PHP6 launch, many features may have been implemented in PHP3.3 and PHP3.4, and we don't want to put everything in the PHP6.

Q: A few months ago, Zend Framework 1.0 was launched, why would you want to use PHP libraries on different platforms instead of pear projects?

Zeev: There are many reasons to decide that we want to develop the Zend Framework. Two years ago, in 2005, when the framework project started, I and Andi (Zend) were co-creators. There are several frameworks to choose from, but we decided to develop a new, independent framework.

One reason is: we want to play the PHP5 advantage as much as possible. We don't want PHP5 to indulge in a framework, but rather a framework that takes full advantage of the PHP5 support object and the very best features that support the Web. The previous framework is unlikely to do this. Development with PHP5 also increases the extensibility of the framework, and the extensibility of the Zend framework is a key element. If the basic implementation is not 100% using PHP5 to do, the PHP5 object model is not continuously used, then the sophistication and extensibility of (this framework) have a lot of problems.

Another important reason is related to property rights: Since the Zend Framework is a collaborative project with IBM, IBM and the relevant companies are concerned about the framework of PHP, and its title (must) is very clear, the seller must be clear that this is original, not in other people's code to improve.

This is the two main reason, the other insignificant. We especially want to emphasize quality. Quality may be very subjective (view), but it also contains some objective aspects, such as "coverage". We want to start from scratch, and each component (component) has to do a complete, thorough safety test before it is put into the frame. We hope, of course, also through a lot of psychological warfare, let users know that this product has been rigorously tested.

Q: How much work is left in the Zend Framework?

Zeev: A lot. Now we separate two groups: Andi Gutmans with a group of people, do the main work. (another) 5-6 individuals work full-time on the Zend Framework project.

Q: What degree does the Zend Framework now do?

Zeev: I think it has come to a good point. Since the launch two years ago, including the 1.0 version, if not mistaken, there are nearly 2 million downloads. We have a clear direction for the development of the framework. The new version of the framework will be launched in accordance with the scheduled schedule, rather than by the increase in the functionality of the schedule to be determined. We are now doing version 1.01, and the 1.0 ratio is not small. Next, we will integrate the framework into other Zend products.

Q: Stefan Esser a debate on PHP security a few months ago. My impression is that the PHP team is very clear on the issue of security patches, but it doesn't change much in the bones. What has changed since then?

Zeev: I personally agree with many public views that Stefan disagrees with. In any case, even if I disagree with some of these debates, it is for the development of PHP. But I don't agree with Stefan that this is a

(PHP Group) well-designed conspiracy, he did not explicitly, but I feel so. (we) are not intentionally making mistakes when dealing with security issues on the PHP network, not intentionally delaying them. We know there's a lot of things to change, but we haven't done it yet. But you have to remember (our work order): On the one hand, when the security problem has a great impact on the whole system. On the other hand, the patching of security issues is advantageous to the development of PHP system. This is the basis for our security patches. I think the response time should be faster now than before.

Latest Developments in PHP