Community News: Latest PECL Releases for 11.29.2011

Latest PECL Releases:

• expect 0.3.1
  
• CUBRID 8.3.1.0008
  
• CUBRID 8.4.0.0005
  
• CUBRID 8.4.1.0001
  
• lua 0.9.1
  
• hidef 0.1.10
  
• solr 1.0.2
  

Brian Swan's Blog: The SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux is Available!

As Brian Swan has mentioned in his latest blog post, the ODBC database driver for SQL Server on Linux has been released. This is a huge step forward for directly connecting linux-based systems (and programming languages) to this popular Microsoft product.

The first beta release of the SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux is available for download! As announced in October, the "Multiplatform Team" (a.k.a. the "MPlat Team") has released a preview version of a driver that will provide first-class access to SQL Server from applications running on Linux operating systems. The team is looking for feedback on this release to incorporate into their production-ready release, so try it out and let us know what you think.

He links to a few resources about the release - more details, a link to download the driver and the official documentation.

PHPMaster.com: Introduction to Git, Part 1

If you haven't gotten a chance to try out git for your version control system, now's the perfect time. PHPMaster has an introduction to using git for a simple PHP project. It introduces you to some of the basics and gets you up to speed quickly.

Some of the more commonly used version control systems that you have likely heard about are CVS and Subversion. This tutorial will take a "forget everything you know about CVS or Subversion" approach. As someone who has used all three of these systems in the professional realm, I can testify that some knowledge of CVS or Subversion can be useful when approaching Git, but it is not necessary. The best way to learn Git is to start using Git for what Git is.

They break it up into a few different sections - why use git, how to create a new repository, adding/staging files for commit, viewing the project history and viewing diffs for different versions. This is the first part in a series, so keep tuned for future parts touching on branching, merging and working with remote repositories.

Gonzalo Ayuso's Blog: Playing with the new PHP5.4 features

Gonzalo Ayuso has a new post to his blog today showing some of the experimentation he's done with PHP 5.4 features like the short array syntax, calling methods through arrays and traits.

PHP5.4 it's close and it's time to start playing with the new cool features. I've created a new Virtual Machine to play with the new features available within PHP5.4. I wrote a post with the most exciting features (at least for me) when I saw the feature list in the alpha version. Now the Release Candidate is with us, so it's the time of start playing with them. I also discover really cool features that I pass over in my first review.

Code snippets are included for each example for:

• Class member access on instantiation
  
• Short array syntax
  
• Support for Class::{expr}() syntax
  
• Indirect method call through array
  
• Callable typehint
  
• Traits
  
• Array dereferencing support
  

He points to this other post for a complete list of what's been added in 5.4.

Site News: Popular Posts for the Week of 11.25.2011

Popular posts from PHPDeveloper.org for the past week:

• DevShed: Building an ORM in PHP
  
• ZetaCode.com: PHP GTK tutorial
  
• Johannes Schlüter's Blog: High Performance PHP Session Storage on Scale
  
• DevShed: Building an ORM in PHP: Domain Modeling
  
• Henrik Bjørnskov's Blog: Travis & Composer sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G
  
• Lorna Mitchell's Blog: POSTing JSON Data With PHP cURL
  
• DZone.com: Creating a virtual server with Vagrant: a practical walkthrough
  
• Ibuildings techPortal: DPC Radio: Distributed Couch Apps - Embracing eventual consistency
  
• php|architect: Transactional Emails for Fun and Profit
  
• Engine Yard: The Future of PHP: PEAR and Pyrus Webcast Recording
  

Engine Yard: The Future of PHP: PEAR and Pyrus Webcast Recording

If you missed out on the Future of PEAR/Pyrus webcast event put on by Engine Yard, you're in luck - they've posted a recording of the event.

In this panel discussion, we tackle topics including the direction PEAR and Pyrus will be going in the next few years, obstacles that may be on the horizon, and more.

PEAR is the package library of standardized packages for a variety of common development tasks. Pyrus is a new package manager to make installing and maintaining PEAR packages simpler. Engine Yard's next webcast will cover the Lithium framework with core contributors Nate Abele, Garrett Woodworth, and John Anderson on December 1st.

Site News: Blast from the Past - One Year Ago in PHP

Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:

• Henri Bergius' Blog: PHP: Finally getting an ecosystem?
  
• Mike Willbanks' Blog: Android C2DM with PHP and Zend Framework
  
• Ruslan Yakushev's Blog: How to install PHP PEAR and phploc on Windows
  
• Label Media Blog: Design Patterns in PHP - Factory method
  
• SimasToleikis' Blog: New to PHP 5.4: Traits
  
• Mashable.com: 8 Experts Break Down the Pros and Cons of Coding With PHP
  
• Devis Lucato's Blog: Anonymous objects in PHP - Composition, Mocks, Refactoring
  
• David Gardner's Blog: Why you should always use PHP interfaces
  
• PHPBuilder.com: Implementing the Singleton Pattern in PHP 5
  
• Wojciech Sznapka's Blog: Power of PHP streams - decompress gz archives on the fly from remote server
  
• Kevin Schroeder's Blog: Building better PHP programmers, part 2
  
• Sebastian Bergmann's Blog: Scalar Type Hints in PHP 5.3.99
  
• Chris Tankersley's Blog: Playing with Lithium
  
• SitePoint PHP Blog: Lightning-fast WordPress with PHP-FPM and nginx
  
• CodeIgniterPodcast.com: Ep. #4 - Changes to CodeIgniter 2.0 and the Community Branch