Planet PHP

Another Serious Security Bug on PHP 5.3.9

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:59:16 GMT

Another Serious Security Bug on PHP 5.3.9

By Manuel Lemos

PHP 5.3.9 release was mostly meant to fix a security bug, but it introduced a new more serious bug. PHP 5.3.10 was just released to fix this issue.

Meanwhile Debian Linux maintainers decided to stop enabling the Suhosin extension by default. This extension is used by several Linux distributions to provide protection against present and future security bugs of PHP.

Read this article to learn more about the just fixed bug what you should do to avoid these security issues. You can also learn more what is the current PHP security status and the importance of the Suhosin extension to prevent PHP security problems.

MicroPHP vs Complicated PHP - Lately in PHP podcast episode 20

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:54:54 GMT

MicroPHP vs Complicated PHP - Lately in PHP podcast episode 20

By Manuel Lemos

Earlier in January Ed Finkler announced the MicroPHP manifesto. It seems to be a rant about against the practices of developers that make PHP development more complicated than it should be. This is one of the main topics discussed by Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert in the episode 20 of the Lately in PHP podcast.

They also discuss the final release of PHP 5.4.0 and whether you should upgrade it or not, the repercussion of the PHP Hash Collision Vulnerability, as well the trends of PHP world based on the analysis of the PHP Zeitgeist 2011 initiative.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript now to learn more in detail about these interesting PHP topics.

PHP 5.4 Features: Shall you Upgrade to the newer PHP Version?

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:25:00 GMT

PHP 5.4 Features: Shall you Upgrade to the newer PHP Version?

By Manuel Lemos

PHP 5.4 is being released after many months of development and tests.

Read this article to get a brief overview of the features of this new release and learn about criteria that you may follow to decide if and when you should upgrade to the new version.

PHP Zeitgeist 2011

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:54:57 GMT

PHP Zeitgeist 2011

By Manuel Lemos

The PHP Zeitgeist is an initiative that allows us to understand what were some of the main new trends and concerns of the PHP developers in the past year.

Read this article to learn about what new things PHP developers have been searching more in 2011 and what are their needs that probably still need to be fulfilled.

PHP Vulnerability May Halt Millions of Servers

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:56:22 GMT

PHP Vulnerability May Halt Millions of Servers

By Manuel Lemos

A security vulnerability found in PHP and many other programming languages may allow attackers to halt servers with vulnerable PHP installations.

Read this article to learn more about this vulnerability and what you can do to avoid that your servers running PHP may be brought down due to this problem.

The Debate of Making PHP Faster using a JIT Compiler - Lately in PHP podcast episode 19

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:10:35 GMT

The Debate of Making PHP Faster using a JIT Compiler - Lately in PHP podcast episode 19

By Manuel Lemos

The official PHP implementation is evolving too slowly, while alternative implementations like Phalanger and Facebook HipHop can run PHP faster thanks to the use of JIT compiler engines.

JIT compilation was the main topic of the episode 19 of the Lately in PHP podcast presented by Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert who received as guests Miloslav Beno of the Phalanger team and Nuno Lopes of the PECL LLVM project to discuss this and other interesting topics of the PHP scene.

They also made a brief retrospective of what happened in the PHP world in 2011 and what they expect for 2012.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript here.

Can .NET make PHP run faster than the official PHP implementation?

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:50:26 GMT

Can .NET make PHP run faster than the official PHP implementation?

By Manuel Lemos

Phalanger is compiler that generates .NET assemblies from PHP code, so it runs in a .NET virtual machine.

The latest benchmarks seem to indicate that PHP applications compiled by Phalanger execute noticeably faster than when they are executed by the official PHP implementation based on Zend engine, even when a caching extension is used.

Read this article to learn how Phalanger works and what lessons can be learned to make the official PHP implementation run at least as fast, eventually in PHP 6 based on Zend Engine 3.

The Easy Way of Running Your MySQL Applications in the Cloud

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:16:01 GMT

The Easy Way of Running Your MySQL Applications in the Cloud

By Avigail Ofer

More and more sites are moving to cloud hosting services to assure a smooth growth path, as the sites require more servers to handle the audience growth.

As a developer, you want to ensure that your database is running smoothly in the cloud, but you do not want to be bogged down by tedious operations and everything else that goes into it, like the manual configuration, optimization, maintenance and development.

Read this article to learn how to connect your PHP app to a cloud database solution to simplify the way you run your database.

The Debate on Remote Work for Web Developers - Lately in PHP podcast episode 18

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:55:10 GMT

The Debate on Remote Work for Web Developers - Lately in PHP podcast episode 18

By Manuel Lemos

The recently published article on attracting talented Web developers by offering remote job positions raised an interesting debate on the challenges, advantages and disadvantages of this way of working.

This debate was the main topic of discussion of the episode 18 of the Lately in PHP podcast with Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert, who were joined by César Rodas. César is a top PHPClasses contributor that has been working remotely for several years for companies around the world.

They also comment briefly on the PHP 5.3.9 and PHP 5.4 release candidate versions announced earlier in November.

Talented Web Developers Are Easy to Hire, Employers Are Just Not Looking Right

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:24:53 GMT

Talented Web Developers Are Easy to Hire, Employers Are Just Not Looking Right

By Manuel Lemos

Once in a while, we hear company managers and recruiters complaining about how hard is to find talented Web developers that are willing work for them.

The problem is that they are not looking right. Not only there are plenty of talented Web developers out there, they are easy to find, and many of them are available for hire.

The employers just need to make a very small concession. Doing that the developers can flock to the companies that are willing concede.

Read this article to understand better what employers are missing and how can they find the talented Web developers they need.