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erm... you mean support like this. LTS for 5 years, could be worse.

PHP is OK. Zend Framework makes it great. Even if you don't use the framework in your application, reviewing the library alone gives great insight into how PHP is supposed to be written.

Huh, the practice is even recommended by Zend. Isn't PHP great, where a closing tag is a vector for bugs?

We don't design Firefox or our websites for the top 1% most computer-literate users. If we did, Firefox's options menu would look a lot more like Eclipse's, and we never would have gotten rid of the status bar. :)

YES YOU DO! That is the whole problem. You are doing it and don't even realize it! Getting rid of the status bar is for the top computer literate (how can I tell when the page is done loading, every other browser I used showed "done" on the bottom). Getting rid of the menus is for the top computer literate (every other computer program I run has menus (incidentally, I think that is why office 2010 changed from the globe to file, I know many users who could not print on their own as there was no "file" to click on and print was always under that)). Getting rid of the search box is for the top computer literate (addresses go here, searches go... where?). Dynamic forward button is for the computer literate (why the hell is the UI changing on me). Solving it with "you can get the old UI back if you download two addons, download the 3.6 on 4 theme, and then do the following 20 customization steps," is for the top computer literate (too many steps for people who cant handle it), especially compared to a 4 step walk through of changing between installed themes (or better a specially crafted URL on a help page to do it for you).

This whole thing can be boiled down into one question: Who does the UX experiments for you, the top or the bottom? Because whomever is represented in the data you get are the ones who you are designing the software for. And I bet that it is heavily skewed towards the top. Try spending some time with people on the bottom.

It's fine to have options. But if they are hard to find them it kind of defeats the point of having them.

We have no interest in forcing you to run the newest version. But we do have a vested interest in most users running the latest version. Only the latest versions get security updates. Only the latest versions get performance and memory usage updates. Only the latest versions get new web features.

Maybe you don't care about some or all of these things. That's totally cool. But what benefit is to be gained by going out of our way to provide buggy, slow, insecure, unsupported, and out-of-date software to our users? Do you think most people could even give informed consent to run such a version of Firefox?

Like I said, we're not hiding these old versions. Even if you can't find them with Google (the FTP server is linked to from the fourth hit for "old firefox versions" for me; it's the first mozilla.org hit), post on any Mozilla mailing list, drop in on irc.mozilla.org at basically any time of day or night -- for goodness sake you can even post on a site like this one -- and I can almost guarantee one of us will see it and give you that link. I don't think we've set the bar particularly high here.

We don't design Firefox or our websites for the top 1% most computer-literate users. If we did, Firefox's options menu would look a lot more like Eclipse's, and we never would have gotten rid of the status bar. :)

Zend Framework not only provides a great framework in terms of programming, but also as a learning guide. Zend Framework helps provide everything that is described above. Using the source as a reference, it helps develop good programming habits and understand proper design patterns.

The Zend Engine license seems contradictory to me. On the one hand, Clause 3 says you're forbidden from using the terms "Zend" or "Zend Engine" to endorse or promote your product. On the other hand, Clauses 5 and 6 say you're absolutely required to use the term "Zend Engine" to endorse and promote your product. Seems like someone took the classic BSD license and bolted a commercial land grab onto it, which seems to honor neither the letter nor the spirit of the original.

Not necessarily for you, but for anybody reading:

More info on jedit-

It's basically a heavy-duty editor. Say you need to set up a big table of constants. BLAH = "blah", or whatever. Or slice and dice some text into code, or rewrite/create a huge series of SQL statements. Very easy with it's BeanShell or regex replacement (multiline, too, if you want). The builtin text macro "Add Prefix and Suffix" is much used. Columnar cut and paste. You don't have to program a C++ library to extend the syntax highlighting, just set up some regexes into an XML config file. Abbreviations (code templates) per file type. Recommended plugins: FTP (edit files remotely), Sessions, XML (works for HTML, too).

Netbeans- great for Java, of course, but it's also very good for PHP, even better than the alternative$. What's nice about it: refactoring. When you're on a variable, it highlights other uses of that variable. It has Symfony support built in, but you can also get it to work to a significant extent with another library or your own. Ctrl+click goes to definition of symbol. Code templates are very handy. They've thought things out like a programmer. E.g., many editors nowadays insert two double quotes when you just type it once. Problem is, after that, you usually want to add a semicolon, and go to the next line. So they added that macro for you already. You can download just a base version with the PHP plugin if you want. The one thing missing is code folding.

I worked on a project several years ago that had a lot of statistical calculations (standard deviation, correlation, distributions, etc.) and was surprised to find that PHP doesn't offer these functions so I had to write my own PHP code to calculate this stuff. I was thinking that implementing an optimized library of various commonly used stats functions would be something that might fit your skill set well. PHP is written in C (and possibly some C++ but I'm not sure). I am re-learning my long lost C chops at the moment in order to contribute to AMFEXT:
http://pecl.php.net/package/amfext

AMFEXT is an extension to PHP and can either be compiled into the PHP executable itself or compiled as a shared object -- a separate file. This extension structure makes it pretty easy to expand PHP because your extension is entirely optional for folks building PHP so it would not be critical to write perfect code right away. In order to get started developing such an extension, there are a variety of tricks to get oriented.

One is to read the pecl-dev mailing list:
http://news.php.net/php.pecl.dev

Another is to read some tutorials. This one is pretty good:
http://devzone.zend.com/article/1021

Here's a quick start guide describing how to make your own 'hello world' extension:
http://blog.slickedit.com/2007/09/creating-a-php-5-extension-with-visual-c-2005/

You don't need permission to download the source and compile it yourself and start building your own extension. If you want it to be included in the PECL repository, you just have to join the mailing list and submit your extension for the other contributors to see. They'll let you know what further steps to take.

I could also use some help with my open source project:
http://flashmog.net/

You have discounted the Zend Framework, but perhaps you should give it another look. It does exactly what you describe. If you want session management, you only need to include one or two files. You can ignore the rest of ZF and just take what you need! The code is generally clean and well documented.

Zend Sessions: http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.session.basic_usage.html

Perhaps the reasons for his differences can be found in this quote from that same page then:

"* Apache does not work well with persistent connections. When it receives a request from a new client, instead of using one of the available children which already has a persistent connection open, it tends to spawn a new child, which must then open a new database connection. This causes excess processes which are just sleeping, wasting resources, and causing errors when you reach your maximum connections, plus it defeats any benefit of persistent connections. (See comments below on 03-Feb-2004, and the footnote at http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/686#fn1)"

He clearly said that he was not using apache but custom c to handle requests.

In any case. He is obviously talking about a completely custom server app, load balancing, etc. That is a far different debate than writing server side cgi in php vs the same in c.

Apache, Lighttpd and my current favorite nginx are awesome, but they dont have the close integration with their development tools and operating system that IIS does. Speaking of development tools... there is no open source equivalant of Visual Studio and there is no MSDN of open source.

True, the web servers just serve webs, they don't have integrated debugging engines that IIS has... oh, wait a minute... lets take the most common web language for apache - PHP. Can you debug live PHP sites? I suppose you can. All you need to do it either know how to already, or use Google like everyone else. Failing that, you could always go to the Zend site and see what resources they have to help you (a little like going to the Microsoft site when you need information. I'd stick with Google though)

If you want an open source equivalent of Visual Studio, there's the biggie - Eclipse. That has plugins for every kind of development environment you'll ever want (just like VS where you plugin C#, VB.net, C++ modules). If you wanted something more lightweight so you can run several of them, try google again.

As for MSDN, its true MSDN is wonderful, well it was, before they deleted most pages in favour of the "this is how .net does it" versions. But on Linux you have man pages - but they're more the equivalent of technet, for programming APIs, you do have to go to the API you want, try google and bookmark the page where you got the API from. eg for Perl, there's wonderfully comprehensive documentation that actually puts MSDN to shame, for PHP - go to Zend site and see for yourself.

You have to do this anyway, even with MSDN. If you want to code Perl, PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, etc - MSDN is useless to you. Even supported languages are not the best - try javascript reference in MSDN. The web's better.

But I guess, if you only want to know the VB.NET language reference, and the .NET framework then VS and MSDN are all you need. All in one handy container that you'll never think to look outside of.

Now its true that most applications run on Windows so you don't need Linux (shame really), and that MS has woken up to the areas were Linux shone (eg web serving) and is taking market share from it. I, however, think that this doesn't matter - as long as the applications are free, if everyone ran them on Windows it would cripple Microsoft. Why bother buying Office if OOo is acceptable? If MS loses all that revenue (and it has a big mouth to feed) then it will wither away quite quickly. Linux doesn't *have* to take market share from Windows. I think 5 years from now things will be different in the software world.

Agreed with everything you said. You could write your own classes to turn PHP into acting strongly typed, then sanitize your data after it's been type checked, but that might be beyond the scope of this project. Save yourself some hassle and read this too: http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/168 It will help validating those inputs.

Rails definitely uses more CPU time. However, it can make development of some kinds of things much faster, and you can work at higher levels of abstraction in Ruby than PHP.

Wow, color me surprised, a framework for a language makes development faster than the raw language. It's a shame there aren't frameworks available for PHP that could cut development time in a similar manner as Rails does for Ruby...

C does work on the server side of web applications, in fact many of the first server side apps were written in C running via CGI. No reason it won't work on shared hosting either, last time I looked my shared hosting provider had a CGI directory. You have have to compile on another machine and copy across. No problems with using C in Python or PHP (I've done the latter and it's very easy).

All in all I think you're completely wrong.

Phillip.

If something generally meets your needs with a few exceptions, I'm not sure why ground up development is necessary?

Just hearing someone mention "coding my own system" makes me shudder. Either they are totally clueless or fresh out of school. There is no other excuse. Really!

I realize you were speaking to the GP here, but I want to be clear I wasn't suggesting creating everything from scratch. None of the applications you mentioned (Mambo, WordPress, OsCommerce) are frameworks and it looks like (based on your comment) the frameworks you have used you built yourself. My point was that using an actual framework such as Zend Framework (my personal favorite) will give you a lot more flexibility if the problem you are solving isn't solved almost exactly to your specs by an existing application. The goal of Zend Framework is to give developers 80% of the components they need (problems that are common across many web apps) and let people developer the other 20% customized to their needs. Just because Drupal has an API doesn't mean it's a framework. Again, for the right problem, Drupal is a great solution. I was merely commenting on the fact that it's being used as a framework which seems quite odd and counter-productive.

You should try doing GUI programming with C++ using Qt. It's a piece of cake (but not free for commercial development unless your code is open source).

PHP has come a long ways in terms of security and good practices thanks to the Zend framework. You should check them out. I use Perl and PHP all the time, but haven't used mod_perl in years. I use PHP for all dynamic pages and Perl for tasks I run from the shell.

I tried looking something up about zend, but I can't seem to find any docs or tutorials on the zend website that would give me some idea of how they handle application logic.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here but it sounds like you're trying to figure out how to use Zend Framework MVC. If that's the case then check out the Zend Controller Quick Start. That will help you figure out the View and Controller aspects of MVC in Zend Framework. However, you may want to wait a bit until it's been updated with all the goodies in 1.5 like Zend_Layout. If you're trying to figure out how to create Models then that's a little harder because Zend Framework doesn't dictate what you're Model should look like. However, in many applications it will be Zend_Db.

I tried looking something up about zend, but I can't seem to find any docs or tutorials on the zend website that would give me some idea of how they handle application logic.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here but it sounds like you're trying to figure out how to use Zend Framework MVC. If that's the case then check out the Zend Controller Quick Start. That will help you figure out the View and Controller aspects of MVC in Zend Framework. However, you may want to wait a bit until it's been updated with all the goodies in 1.5 like Zend_Layout. If you're trying to figure out how to create Models then that's a little harder because Zend Framework doesn't dictate what you're Model should look like. However, in many applications it will be Zend_Db.

Out of curiosity, what would you recommend using instead of Java (and don't you dare say PHP)?

PHP + Zend Framework - seriously

Your link was for Zend Platform. Zend Platform != Zend Core. I've downloaded the Linux version for free to mess around with before. Zend Core for Oracle or IBM is also free. http://www.zend.com/en/products/core/ Now what "commercial" support means is another situation.

... like Ruby on Rails?

Just kidding. Seriously, though, it said "commercially supported form of PHP". Be sure to take a big mental note of that.
Commercial == fee's. Based on Zends track record of charging for things, it's not going to be cheap for single developers... I have a feeling it'll be in the area of $800-$1500 per CPU or something silly like that... in which case, why not just use a UNIX/derivative?

Easy way to get a functional eclipse setup for PHP and web development:

Go here to get the Yoxos Eclipse distro (I like this one because it does the best job of finding your dependencies for you).

http://ondemand.yoxos.com/geteclipse/start

In plugin explorer, search for and schedule PDT, SQL Explorer, and either Subclipse or whatever is compatible with your versioning software.

Click Start Download, and then unzip and copy the eclipse directory to somewhere suitable.

Meanwhile, go here:

http://www.aptana.com/studio/download

And click on the Eclipse Plugin tab and download the plugin.

Then open Eclipse, go to the workbench, and in the menu, do Help > Software Updates > Find and Install, then choose to Search for New Features to Install, then choose install from archive and point it at the plugin you just downloaded. It will tell you it needs to restart afterward.

Now you have a functional IDE, and you can use Window > Show View > Other to choose whatever panels you want to have open in your workspace. I mix and match Aptana and PDT.

Last but not least, you need the Zend Debugger. Do Help > Software Updates > Find and Install, then do Help > Software Updates > Find and Install, then choose to Search for New Features to Install, then choose New Remote Site. For Name, put Zend Debugger, and for URL, put http://downloads.zend.com/pdt. Make sure that site is checked in the list, then click Finish and it will search for your debugger. Find it, install it, then do go here:

http://www.thierryb.net/pdtwiki/index.php?title=Using_PDT_:_Installation_:_Installing_the_Zend_Debugger#Installing_Zend_Debugger_client

And follow whatever directions are consistent with the platform you're using.

If you're using Zend Framework then Zend_Layout gives you an implementation of the Two Step View pattern which sounds like what you're looking for.

I have tried pretty much every PHP-capable IDE/Editor and hands down the best is Nusphere PHPEd (windows only). Zend Studio is very close and Eclipse PDT (the open-source basis of Zend Studio for Eclipse) is getting there, but the intellisense and other features aren't nearly as complete as Zend Studio and PHPEd. I have not tried the official Zend Studio for Eclipse releases since I did not really like PDT.

My impressions come from about 2 years on PHPEd, a few months with PDT and a couple of days with Zend Studio and other products (such as PHPEdit).

Here are some of things that draw me to PHPEd:
- Full intellisense/autocomplete for all PHP code and all of your PHP code from anywhere in your project
- Full parsing of PHPDoc comments
- Multi-line PCRE regex find and replace across files/directories/current project
- SFTP/FTP project mapping like "Sites" in Dreamweaver
- DB console that works with SQLite, MySQL, Postgre, MSSQL, Oracle and others
- Full debugger, local web server, code performance analysis

Zend Studio 5.5 seemed pretty good from my usage (it has a lot of the features PHPEd has), however I disliked a few things:

- It ran on Java which always seems to make apps feel more sluggish
- It requires 1 license per computer, so you can't share your license at home and at work
- It was more expensive that PHPEd

PDT (the basis for the new Zend Studio for Eclipse) was ok, however it had the following issues. Note that these issues will be different if you but Studio for Eclipse since it comes with specific bundled software:

- It took a while to get the interface to a state where I was productive with PHP stuff (be sure to have the right version of the JVM!)
- All of the database interaction was through separate JDBC drivers which were a pain to set up
- The code intellisense/autocompletion did not always work properly and did not fully parse PHPDoc comments

I'm sure this all sounds like an ad for the product, but I just _really_ enjoy using PHPEd.

So, you want to see an actual example of a site with a seemingly perfectly valid SSL certificate but still sporting an exploit? Look no further than here: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2008/01/08/italian_banks_xss_opportunity_seized_by_fraudsters.html. This is just a recent example.

This one example totally defeats all of your "security checks". And it is in the wild. You will of course claim that this particular attack was made possible by two factors: A XSS vuln at the banks website and users clicking on a link in an email sent to them. But the domain of that link was the banks domain. The XSS script was obfuscated. Once you arrived at the page everything seemed OK: There's a https:/// at the front of the url, and the domain name is in fact the banks own domain name. Is the bank to blame? yes! Should anyone follow a link sent to them in an email? no! Did it succeed in having users giving up their details? you bet!

Incidently you don't "throw up a deceptive IFRAME". Iframes are embedded into the actual html. You can't tell it is there. Your address bar only tells you about the "parent" page. If the actual form lives inside an iframe - possibly generated by a XSS vulnerability like in this example, validating the URI means s***.

I really don't know which articles you've read on CardSpace. Do you only read the headlines and when CardSpace and Passport are mentioned together you assume that they are one and the same or that they are intrinsically linked?

Instead of FUDing (referring to "articles" without any concrete references) maybe you would like to point out what the problem with CardSpace is? I mean, apart from the fact that it originated from Microsoft which obviously is very disturbing to you.

Let me summarize CardSpace for you:

1. CardSpace is a de-centralized, open protocol based on XML. This is totally opposite Passport (although some Passport driven sites now allow you to use CardSpace as well).
2. CardSpace does not mandate any specific credential store. Not AD, not LDAP or anything. It is a procotol. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share it.
3. The client need not use AD or Windows or any other MS technology. IE on XP with .NET Framework 3.0 and on Vista already sports an AD free CardSpace card store.
4. The server/site (relying party) need not use AD or Windows or any other MS technology. There is even a proprosal for inclusion of CardSpace support into Zend Framework for PHP: http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFPROP/Zend_CardSpace. Google for more projects.
5. The (if one is used) issuing party need not use AD or Windows or any other MS technology.
6. Microsoft does not have a central authority. Microsoft is never in on the authentication (unless you authorize at a Microsoft site, of course).
7. I can make any number of "self-issued" cards, in which case there will be only two parties involved in the authentication; unlike OpenID id I may add.
8. Even if I use the same card against multiple sites, they don't get an identifier with which to compare my behavior across the sites. Unless of course my card includes something personally identifiable such as a unique email addy. But they don't need my email and I may question the site why the assert that claim.
9. CardSpace cards contain "claims", such as email adresses, names, etc. Some card you can issue yourself. But the relying party can demand that some cards are signed by a mutually trusted authority, like a bank or creditcard company. This could potentially spell the end (good thing) of handing out CC numbers on the 'net. The relying party can assert a (signed) claim that the bank accepts a withdrawal of a certain amount of $$ for a transaction. The shop never "sees" the CC#, merely a "signed"

Anybody that still thinks this way about PHP needs to check out the Zend Framework.

I recently started using it (had to for work) and it's actually well implemented and well documented. It made me realize that PHP5 was much different from PHP4. Zend Framework is really everything that PHP didn't used to be. Very easily extensible, with great libraries, and fully implemented MVC and DRY design.

Now, one could complain about PHP's strange pointer support (not missing, mind you, just sometimes takes two lines instead of one to do things), but that's another topic entirely.

Technically you're talking about the available functions, not the "language" itself. But, semantics aside, I would argue that your complaint is being addressed. The Zend Framework I linked to and the SPL are PHP class libraries that you can use if you would prefer to work with PHP in OO way and (for the most part) forget about calling PHP functions outside of a class or object context.

PHP and ActiveX over Python?

What's up with all the PHP haters on Slashdot? For building most web applications it's the place to be. Zend is working hard to increase the level of professionalism of the PHP community. I've recently started using Zend Framework and it's a really nice way to build web applications.

Really people should be using PDO, instead of mysql_ or pgsql_. Of course the real solution is to use a database abstraction layer, but I've never found a good way to create an n-tier web appliction in PHP.

Well not strictly n-tier, you can get pretty darn close with Zend_Db (which contains adapters to PDO), Zend_View, and Zend_Controller.

Really people should be using PDO, instead of mysql_ or pgsql_. Of course the real solution is to use a database abstraction layer, but I've never found a good way to create an n-tier web appliction in PHP.

Well not strictly n-tier, you can get pretty darn close with Zend_Db (which contains adapters to PDO), Zend_View, and Zend_Controller.

Really people should be using PDO, instead of mysql_ or pgsql_. Of course the real solution is to use a database abstraction layer, but I've never found a good way to create an n-tier web appliction in PHP.

Well not strictly n-tier, you can get pretty darn close with Zend_Db (which contains adapters to PDO), Zend_View, and Zend_Controller.

Tzdata isn't the only affected package.

PHP keeps its time zone information internally, and of course there isn't a debian update for it so you may need to recompile with a new timezonedb.h

So if you have a web server, get cracking!

I am wondering who they are, as well. If it helps, they also did this study about PHP.

Ooh, and here's one where they say Linux is gaining ground over Windows in certain areas...

http://framework.zend.com/ end of story.

-mb

not to mention Zend's solution: The Zend Framework.

If this year was 2000 then I would agree with you. PHP has quite a few MVC frameworks that have been around for some time and are fairly extensively used in enterprise environments. If you know any developers embedding their PHP in the HTML in large apps please ask them to stop.

Here is a small example of a few MVCs out there.
CakePHP - http://www.cakephp.org/
Symfony - http://www.symfony-project.com/
Zend Framework - http://framework.zend.com/

Not to start a little argument over PHP and Python, but you're comparing apples with oranges here. You are saying that PHP is insecure, its semantics are undesirable and so are its standard libraries, database interfacing, interpreter and performance, and then you come along saying how awesome Django is, disregarding that actually you're comparing a language with a framework.

There are a handful of decent PHP frameworks out there, with others coming along, which you can take and compare with Django, but please don't bash the language because you don't like its semantics, you have something personal with it or you didn't take the time to choose a decent framework.

Regarding the database interfacing support, I beg to differ, I believe PHP has been supporting a large number of databases for a longer while than most of the other web scripting languages out there today.

The concept sounds very similar to QEDWiki demo video (demo video requires Flash).
QEDWiki is an IBM product based on the Zend Framework. You can create mash-ups and other things much like by drag and drop of components, all in your browser.

This won't help you write POOP (PHP Object Oriented Programming) code - it's not an IDE...

You want one of the Zend Studio by-products for that: http://www.zend.com/products/zend_studio

In >20 years how many times has Dvorak actually been right?

Also, last I checked, there is already proprietary software for Linux already and GPL hasn't stopped them due to any viral "tainting."

(Yeah I know one of those is going GPL soon but isn't yet)

Then there are those which skirt the GPL and where the legality is questionable, such as NVidia's and ATI's video drivers.

i totally agree with you. from the press releases and news articles it seems that MS is ensuring that every popular application such as JBoss, PHP and Ruby runs as well on Windows as it does on Linux. With MS dollars they will ensure all sorts of compatibility/interoperability with other portions of Windows (IIS, IE etc) - which to be blunt is all MS does - ensure compatibility (within strict rules of course). So now Windows will once again become a choice for deployment of stacks - which Linux currently is.

As for performance: you can't "compile" them like you can in python to avoid the reparsing time which can be quite extensive if you get up into tens of thousands of lines of code which happens on *every* page load.

You mean like Zend studio?

Think about it; the website will probably be a dozen screens. Nothing fancy and almost everything is static (i.e. it doesn't need to change when a user clicks somewhere). Let's see if we can get an initial draft:

• Static pages: index page, discography, agenda, lyrics
• Dynamic page 1: you can fill in an e-mail address and then be transferred to Paypal. This is described well.
• Dynamic page 2: when Paypal returns a successful payment, this page shows a number of links to download the songs or albums. Contained in the link is a Secret Number tied to a cookie, an IP address or some other way to distinguish a user. The Secret Number is then put in a URL and mailed to the user with the e-mail address from the first page. You could also make this page much simpler and just count the number of downloads. A user can download twice and then the Secret Number is revoked.

i'm not so sure it's a hack or prank. YMMV...

posted on http://digg.com/ (by sickaltima and achiIIe):

Jani Taskinen
http://www.zend.com/person.php?handle=sniper

Something to note:
http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intN WSAID=13246&group=General

"Finnish UN observer feared killed in Israeli airstrike" ...

from Freenode:
"_sniper_" is Jani Taskinen.

[_sniper_] hehehehe..
[_sniper_] all other members of the UN security council wanted to condemn Israel for attacking the UN post but USA (freedom and democracy) vetoed it....Israel says the resolution was fair.
[_sniper_] hell yeah..
[_sniper_] NUKE ISRAEL!
[_sniper_] I'm so full of that fucking country..
[Shai-Tan] indeed
[_sniper_] Eye for an eye..I'll kill one Israel officer for one of ours, is that fair?
[_sniper_] I bet I'll be hanged for that.
[_sniper_] They kill one of my brother-in-arms-for-peace..I think I'm entitled to kill one of their nazis.
[_sniper_] Hezbollah, where can I enlist?
[_sniper_] FYI: I don't care at all what anybody thinks about me. I'm going to be openly anti-Israel from now on. This was the last straw for me. Fuck you jews.
[_sniper_] I will also quit this project. As long as it's backed by some Israel company, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
[_sniper_] Good bye.
[-- _sniper_ (~jani@a88-112-115-63.elisa-laajakaista.fi) has left #php.pecl

Jani is also Finnish BTW

I don't really think this IRC log is true. PHP has been linked to Zend since PHP3. Zend has had some serious links to Isreal since the beginning. According to http://www.zend.com/company/management Zeev Suraski is a graduate of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology as is Andi Gutmans. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php

Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, two Israeli developers at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, rewrote the parser in 1997 and formed the base of PHP 3, changing the language's name to the recursive initialism "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". The development team officially released PHP/FI 2 in November 1997 after months of beta testing. Public testing of PHP 3 began immediately and the official launch came in June 1998. Suraski and Gutmans then started a new rewrite of PHP's core, producing the Zend engine in 1999.[2] They also founded Zend Technologies in Ramat Gan, Israel, which is actively involved with PHP development.

The link as been there since the late 1990's. So if Jani had these views he wouldn't have started with PHP in the early 2000's.

Also if he really believed this, he most likely would have said something about it in his message so as to help damage the project. His messsage was clearly crafted to get him out of the project immediately without causing a major problem (of course /. will make a mountain out of a molehill anyday). It's pretty obvious he's leaving over some kind of interpersonal relation problem with some or all of the team. Instead of making accusations, hurling insults, or trying to damage people's reputation, he's taken the honorable way out and qickly leaves. Yes this makes some of the uninformed masses speculate but this is going a little far even for the /. crowd.

Seriously, though, a more thorough listing of Jani's contributions over the past 6+ years might better show just how much of a loss it is to have him depart the scene (from http://www.zend.com/person.php?handle=sniper:

• as a lead developer for Zend Engine II
• as a lead developer for TSRM (Thread Safety Resource Management)
• by testing and maintaining the build for the PHP core
• by writing/maintaining tests for the standard functions in the PHP core
• as a lead developer for gd, a core extension
• by working as a developer on imap, a core extension
• by working as a developer on session, a core extension
• by working as a developer on sockets, a core extension
• by providing occasional fixes for the testsuite distributed with PHP
• by applying maintenance fixes to the underlying libraries in bcmath, pcre and xmlrpc
• by providing tests and occasional fixes for xml
• by providing occasional fixes for apache2filter, apache2handler, apache_hooks, cgi, cli, dba, dom, iconv, informix, isapi, ldap, mcrypt, mcve, mime_magic, msql, mssql, mysqli, mysql, ncurses, oci8, odbc, openssl, oracle, pgsql, recode, snmp, soap, sqlite, sybase, tidy and tokenizer
• by writing/maintaining tests for mbstring, mhash, pcntl, pspell, shmop and wddx
• by working as a developer on bugs.php.net

Whatever the reasons were, major thanks have to go to Jani for all of his work. We would be looking at a different www without his efforts.

Knock it off allready.
I've had enough of the eternal Dimwits constantly bashing this or that with "MySQL not scalable" "PHP not scalable", blablabla.
PHP has arrived in the enterprise market. That's a fact. Yes, I know, Java has been there for 8 years, PHP is messy and quirky (so is Perl), MySQL isn't a DB, we've heard it all before.
In case you haven't noticed: PHP 5 is out. It's a full blown, mature PL and arguably the 400 pound gorilla of SSI solutions with a long history. MySQL 5 is out aswell. It's a full blown DB and comes with tons of free x-platform admin and design tools that make building the outline of a large webapp a walk in the park and thus scares the living daylights out of Oracle and IBM. You may have noticed IBM virtually giving their DB2 away for free (beer) since just a few months ago. Guess how that happend.
Imagine someone would come along and tell you that large-scale webapps in Perl are a pipedream. Not to far-fetched in this context, no? And what about slashdot and kuro5hin?

PHP is as good a technology as any other in use when it comes to building large webapps (point in case: www.rubyonrails.org/index.php/ ). Industry strength PHP Frameworks are poping up left, right and center and other places like mushrooms after the rain. And as for MySQL "not being ready for large, scalable apps" - you're being silly.