If you're a part of a development team anywhere, chances are at one point or another you've asked for someone else to take a look at your code and give their opinions. Maybe it was you looking over a coworker's latest addition and it was...somewhat lacking. How can you say it in a constructive and nice way? The Inviqa techPortal has some suggestions.

Feedback on performance matters. It not only maintains quality, refines and hones performance, but it can also improve morale and trust, and build relationships. It can stop minor problems from escalating into major capability issues. It's something that every people manager or team leader should be doing as standard, and yet it's so hard to get right. For some people, giving good feedback is easy. [...] Delivering negative feedback can be a tricky process so how do you give negative feedback, or (as the much hackneyed phrase would have it) "constructive" feedback?

The post includes a list of six things to think about as you provide feedback to other developers (and even as a manager to your employees). The list suggests things like making it timely, listening to their side of things and setting a plan for resolving the issue.

Following several other posts with the "common mistakes PHP developers make" theme, Bruno Skvorc has posted his own list of seven things he sees developers doing over and over.

Back at the end of June, TopTal, the freelance marketplace, published a post about 10 Most Common Mistakes PHP Programmers Make. The list wasn't exhaustive, but it was well written and pointed out some very interesting pitfalls one should be wary of - even if I wouldn't personally list the mistakes as very common. I encourage you to give it a thorough read - it has some truly valuable information you should be aware of - especially the first eight points.

His additions to the list of common mistakes includes:

• Using the mysql extension
• Not rewriting URLs
• Assigning in Conditions
• Being Too Transparent

You can read the full list and summaries of each in the rest of the post.

The PHP development group has officially released the latest in the PHP 5.4.x and 5.5.x series today: PHP 5.4.31 and PHP 5.5.15

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 5.4.31 [and PHP 5.5.13[. Over 10 bugs were fixed in this release. All PHP 5.4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Bugs fixed in these releases include updates to the core language, the built-in CLI server, the PostgreSQL extension and the streams interface. You can view the full list of changes (and related bugs) in the full Changelog. As always, you can download this latest release either from the main downloads page or from windows.php.net for the Windows users.

NetTuts.com has published a few more WordPress tips and best practices to help you get the most out of your WordPress-based application.

Welcome to the second part of the series. In the first article, we explained the WordPress Coding Standards, how to avoid namespaces collisions, comments in the code, and some basic security tips. Today, we are going to go a bit deeper and write some more code and learn some techniques to improve performance and security of our plugins.

They look specifically at when you should include your scripts and styles, formatting Ajax calls and working with filters and actions. Code snippets are included with each point with links to some other resources for some of the topics to provide more information.

• phasty/events (0.1) PHP events library
  
  
• wikibase/data-model (0.8.2) PHP implementation of the Wikibase DataModel
  
  
• burnbright/silverstripe-omnipay (1.0.0) SilverStripe Omnipay Payment Module
  
  
• phasty/process (0.1) PHP for asynchronous task execution
  
  
• heyday/silverstripe-cacheinclude (4.0.2, 4.0.1)
  
  
• devello/reflection (0.6.1.2) Reflection extensions
  
  
• matmar10/rest-api-bundle (1.0.0-rc3, 1.0.0-rc2) A Symfony Bundle that enables the use of @Api annotation to automatically serialize any return value from any controller using JMS Serializer.
  
  
• jacobstr/matura (v0.1.0) A mocha/rspec inspired testing framework for php.
  
  
• jacobstr/esperance (v0.1.2, v0.1.1) BDD style assertion library for PHP.
  
  
• aydin-hassan/xml-fuse (0.3.0) Small Library to turn merge data using XPaths
  
  
• cyantree/grout (4.4) Framework and toolkit
  
  
• components/foundation (5.3.1) The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world.
  
  
• nibynool/fitbit-interface-bundle (0.5.3) A Symfony >=2.3.0 Bundle for accessing the Fitbit API.
  
  
• laracasts/commander (1.2.1, 1.2.0) Commands and domain events in Laravel
  
  
• solution10/collection (v1.1.0) A simple and fast Collection class
  
  
• cerbero/workflow (1.0.1, 1.0.0) Speed up the workflow to add new features to your Laravel projects.
  
  
• arkanmgerges/multi-tier-architecture (1.3.0, 1.2.0) Multi-Tier Architecture core used for building applications
  
  
• heroku/heroku-buildpack-php (v29) Toolkit for starting a PHP application locally, with or without foreman, using the same config for PHP/HHVM and Apache2/Nginx as on Heroku
  
  
• jacopo/laravel-library (1.0.1) General laravel library package
  
  
• zenify/doctrine-methods-hydrator (v1.0.3, v1.0.2) Hydrates presenter methods from parameters to entities
  
  
• lavender/lavender (v0.6.0) jade-esque templates for PHP 5.3
  
  
• webandcow/bs_helpers (1.1.1) Extension of the CakePHP's FormHelper and HtmlHelper to use the framework Twitter Bootstrap v3.0.0 more easily
  
  
• justintadlock/hybrid-core (2.0.1) Hybrid Core WordPress theme framework
  
  
• docdigital/pdf-manager-bundle (v1.0.2, v1.0.1) Pdf Management Bundle to merge, split PDFs
  
  
• buskamuza/product-community-edition (0.1.0-alpha90) N/A
  
  
• v3labs/math (0.4) Math library for php 5.4+
  
  
• juy/setting (1.0.4) Laravel database settings
  
  
• zfcampus/zf-console (1.0.3) Library for creating and dispatching console commands
  
  
• bldr-io/bldr (6.3.0) Simple Build System / Task Runner
  
  
• dflydev/doctrine-orm-service-provider (v1.0.6, v2.0.0) Doctrine ORM Service Provider
  
  
• malezha/sentry-auth-laravel (1.2.5, 1.2.4) Sentry Auth Driver for Laravel
  
  
• he-rnand-es/hipchat-laravel (v0.1, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1) HipChat PHP Client Wrapper for Laravel 4.2+
  
  
• phpsysinfo/phpsysinfo (v3.1.14) phpSysInfo is a customizable PHP Script that parses /proc, and formats information nicely. It will display information about system facts like Uptime, CPU, Memory, PCI devices, SCSI devices, IDE devices, Network adapters, Disk usage, and more.
  
  
• drmabuse/yii2-sir-trevor-js (0.0.5) Yii 2 Sir Trevor JS widget
  
  
• babzich/logentries-bundle (0.1) A simple wrapper for the Logentries library
  
  
• wan2land/wandu-core (1.4.2) This is for me. Simple Core for all of works.
  
  
• contao-bootstrap/form (1.0.0-beta1) Navigation templates supporting bootstrap dropdown navigation
  
  
• contao-bootstrap/templates (1.0.0-beta1) Modified Contao templates supporting Bootstrap markup
  
  
• contao-bootstrap/core (1.0.0-beta1) Core of Contao Bootstrap extension
  
  
• contao-bootstrap/components (1.0.0-beta1) Bootstrap components for Contao CMS
  
  
• contao-bootstrap/layout (1.0.0-beta1) Bootstrap layout integration in Contao
  
  
• algolia/algoliasearch-client-php (1.3.1) Algolia Search API Client for PHP
  
  
• condenast/pangea (1.7.012)
  
  
• ac/fiendish-bundle (0.2.3, 0.2.2) Background daemons for your Symfony2 app
  
  
• docdigital/cdn-bundle (v1.0.0) manages file uploads and downloads at Resourcesmedia%s
  
  
• traackr/traackr-api-php (0.10) Traackr API PHP Library
  
  
• sensiolabs/connect-bundle (v3.1.0) Official bundle for the SensioLabs Connect SDK
  
  
• contao-community-alliance/dc-general (2.0.0-beta14) Universal data container for Contao
  
  
• creativesoftworks/behat-wiremock-context-extension (v0.2) A Behat Extension that makes use of Wiremock as a test double for API calls
  
  
• etsy/phpunit-extensions (v0.7.0) Etsy PHPUnit Extensions
  
  
• carlosio/geckoboard (1.0.4) A PHP library for dealing with Geckoboard API (http://www.geckoboard.com)
  
  
• gettext/gettext (v1.1.0) PHP - JS gettext conversor
  
  
• dizews/yii2-crud-buttons (0.1.0) It is a widget for Yii2 framework which control a crud buttons.
  
  
• mediasilo/phoenix-php-sdk (0.6.2)
  
  
• voceconnect/lift-search (1.9.6, 1.9.5, 1.9.4) Lift leverages the search index power of Amazon CloudSearch to improve your WordPress-powered site's search experience. Learn more at: http://getliftsearch.com
  
  
• wsdl2phpgenerator/wsdl2phpgenerator (2.4.1) Simple utility and class library for generating php classes from a wsdl file.
  
  
• koala-framework/library-modernizr (v1.8.3-p0) Modernizr JavaScript Library
  
  
• atroxide/police-activity (1.0.4) Library for scraping Texarkana's police-activity email attachments.
  
  
• midnight/google-places (v1.0.1) A Google Places API wrapper
  
  
• ujm/exo-bundle (1.3.3)
  
  
• netgusto/deviation-bundle (1.0.0) Symfony2 Deviation Bundle
  
  
• aptoma/twig-markdown (1.0.0) Twig extension to work with Markdown content
  
  
• graham-campbell/navigation (v1.0.0-beta1) Navigation Is A Navigation Bar Generator For Laravel 4.2+
  
  
• kartik-v/yii2-datecontrol (v1.1.0) Date control module allowing separation of formats for View and Model for Yii Framework 2.0
  
  
• doctrine/phpcr-odm (1.2.0-RC1) Object-Document-Mapper for PHPCR
  
  
• bhoeting/navigation-builder (1.2) A Blade helper to easily create Navigation HTML.
  
  
• data-dog/php-nsq (0.2.0) NSQ publisher for PHP
  
  
• treehouselabs/slugifier (v1.0.0) Slugifier
  
  
• keboola/orchestrator-php-client (1.0.5) PHP Client for KBC Orchestrator
  
  
• otak/maestro (1.0.27, 1.0.26) Next-generation MVC Micro-Framework for PHP5.3+
  
  
• complyadvantage/php-sanctions-api (0.6) PHP wrapper for the ComplyAdvantage Sanctions API
  
  
• complyadvantage/php-compliance-api (0.6) PHP wrapper for the ComplyAdvantage Sanctions API
  
  
• bartlett/php-compatinfo (3.2.0) Find out the minimum version and the extensions required for a piece of code to run
  
  
• qafoolabs/profiler (v0.5.4) Simple library that wraps Xhprof profile collection and sends to Qafoo Profiler
  
  
• voilab/exhumer (0.9.1, 0.9.0) Small models unserializer tool.
  
  
• webpatser/laravel-countries (1.2) Laravel Countries is a bundle for Laravel, providing Almost ISO 3166_2, 3166_3, currency, Capital and more for all countries.
  
  
• netgusto/bootcamp (1.0.0) Easy paas/classic platform integration with Symfony2
  
  
• lafourchette/l10n-bundle (v1.1.0) A bundle to manage localization
  
  
• hostnet/entity-plugin-lib (1.5.3) Installer for all the Hostnet Doctrine entity libraries
  
  
• fieryprophet/php-sandbox (v1.3.8) A PHP library that can be used to run PHP code in a sandboxed environment
  
  
• voilab/tinycms (0.1.0) Small textfile based CMS
  
  
• netgusto/bootcamp-bundle (1.0.5, 1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.0.1) Symfony2 BootCamp Bundle
  
  
• netgusto/parametertouch-bundle (1.0.1, 1.0.0) Symfony2 BootCamp Bundle
  
  
• voilab/restanswer (0.1.0) Response system for REST Apis.
  
  
• ehesp/steam-login (v1.0.0) A simple PHP Steam login and validation package
  
  
• bariew/yii2-node-tree (2.0.0-beta) Uses unique ids to create tree and display it with jstree
  
  
• bartlett/php-reflect (2.2.0) Adds the ability to reverse-engineer classes, interfaces, functions, constants, namespaces, traits and more.
  
  
• prismic/php-sdk (1.0.6-beta) PHP development kit for prismic.io
  
  
• voilab/serviceanswer (0.1.0) Yet another mean to standardize a service answer with error management.
  
  
• escapework/laravel-asset-versioning (0.1.4) Package to help you avoid cache by versioning your assets
  
  
• madeyourday/contao-rocksolid-custom-elements (v1.2.0) Create your own, nestable content elements using a modular system. End the WYSIWYG chaos with your own content elements.
  
  
• appserver-io/build (0.1.0) Generic build- and deployment targets
  
  
• avisota/contao-message (2.0.1) Manage messages within the backend.
  
  
• kinglozzer/silverstripe-columnedlist (1.0.0) An SS_ListDecorator to facilitate stacking data vertically in columns
  
  
• vesparny/silex-simple-rest (v2.2.0) A simple silex skeleton for rest api
  
  
• swarrot/swarrot-bundle (v1.0.2) SwarrotBundle
  
  
• davidyell/seo (0.0.6) A CakePHP plugin for managing SEO
  
  
• keboola/storage-api-client (2.11.17) Keboola Storage API PHP CLient
  
  
• bariew/yii2-notice-cms-module (2.0.0-alpha)
  
  
• flint/tacker (1.0.1) Easy configuration based on Symfony Config
  
  
• anlutro/l4-repository (0.7.2) Repository classes for Laravel 4.
  
  
• philo/laravel-translate (v1.0.5) Translation manager for Laravel 4
  
  
• watson/active (1.2.4) Laravel 4 helper for recognising the current route, controller and action
  
  
• vivait/bootstrap-bundle (1.2) Bootstrap Common Bundle
  
  
• boekkooi/twig-jack-bundle (v1.0.6, v1.0.5, v1.0.4) Handy additional features for Twig within symfony 2
  
  
• experience/laracart (0.1.0) Laravel shopping cart, with support for multiple product types, guest carts, and more.
  
  
• voilab/acedao (0.9.6) AceDAO, a simple yet powerful query system
  
  
• pimple/pimple (v3.0.0, v2.1.1) Pimple is a simple Dependency Injection Container for PHP 5.3
  
  
• sulu/security-bundle (0.5.1) Security Bundle for the Sulu CMS
  
  
• yoozi/miner (1.0.3) PHP library to extract the metadata from a public web page and/or summarize it.
  
  
• yoozi/golem (1.0.3) PHP development toolkit for Yoozi RD team.
  
  
• techdivision/php-by-contract (0.3.4) A lightweight Design-by-Contract library for PHP
  
  
• thadafinser/zfc-datagrid-examples (v1.0.1, v1.0) Examples for thadafinser/zfc-datagrid
  
  
• visualappeal/piwik-php-api (1.0.0)
  
  
• bc/cmf (0.1.6.5) simple cmf (application, controller, command, etc.)
  
  
• chippyash/strong-type (1.0.2) Strong type support. For when you absolutely want to know what you are getting
  
  
• prolic/humus-supervisor-module (v0.1.2, v0.1.1) Supervisor module for Zend Framework 2 based on supervisord
  
  
• harp-orm/harp (0.3.2) Light and Flexible ORM without magic
  
  
• dlondero/gh-dashboard (0.3.1, 0.3.0) Add missing feature to list issues mentioning me in Github's organization dashboard!
  
  
• mohammad-mahdy/yii2-jdate (0.6) Jalali date & time.
  
  
• monarobase/country-list (1.2.0) List of all countries with names and ISO 3166-1 codes in all languages and data formats for Laravel 4
  
  
• fobiaweb/php-helper-lib (v0.2.1)
  
  
• dinesh/bugonemail (V1.0) Get Laravel Bug or Error instant notification by Emails
  
  
• zenozeng/gitlab-changelog (v0.1.1, v0.1.0) A simple php script to generate changelog via gitlab API v3
  
  
• eazy/cache (0.1.0) The Eazy Cache Component
  
  
• marcelerz/php-callable-spy (1.0.0) Spy library for testing php callables
  
  
• solpak/solpak-project (1.1.3) solpak
  
  
• bradcrumb/bc_zf-less-compiler (1.1.0) A LessCompiler Module for ZF2
  
  
• nikita2206/poller (v0.1.1) Poller library can be used for polling stuff: Sockets, other processes, file system, anything!
  
  
• samwilson/kohana_webdb (4.4.2) A database user-interface system (Ã la phpMyAdmin, but without the administrative capabilities, and suitable for non-technical users) built on the Kohana framework.
  
  
• webtoucher/yii2-commands (v1.0.3) Yii 2 extension wrapper for console controllers.
  
  
• jamesfurey/url-linker (1.0.0) Kwi's UrlLinker, modified for Composer.
  
  

• SitePoint Web Foundations Blog: Quick Tip: Install Zend Server 7 on an Ubuntu 14.04 Vagrant Box
• Anna Filina: Common PHP Mistakes
• NetTuts.com: Best Practices When Working With Sensitive Data: Securing Your Application
• Paul Jones: Action-Domain-Responder, Content Negotiation, and Routers
• Site News: Popular Posts for the Week of 07.18.2014
• 7PHP.com: Michelangelo van Dam - 7PHP Interviewee VIP Profile
• php[architect]: July 2014 Issue Released - Navigating the Business
• Community News: Latest PEAR Releases for 07.21.2014
• Voices of the ElePHPant: Interview with Evan Coury
• Reddit.com: What constitutes the "PHP community"?

PHPMaster.com has posted the second part of their best practices in REST APIs series with this new post focusing more on the implementation part of things.

We ended the first part of this tutorial with all the basic layers of our API in place. We have our server setup, authentication system, JSON input/output, error management and a couple of dummy routes. But, most importantly, we wrote the README file that defines resources and actions. Now it's time to deal with these resources.

They move on and add more functionality for creating (POST) and updating (PUT/PATCH) contacts in the system. They also show how to list contacts and add in some search handling allowing for sorting and returning only certain data. There's also some code for pagination handling, locating a single contact record, basic caching and simple rate limiting.

The /Dev/Hell podcast has released their latest episode today, number 48: Old As Dirt. In this episode hosts Chris Hartjes and Ed Finkler are joined by guest Elizabeth Smith about being "old as dirt" and mentoring other developers.

Our guest this week is Elizabeth Smith, PHP internals veteran and guru of PHP on Windows (she says "I wish every company was as good at giving back to open source as Microsoft"). We talk about being Old as Dirt in relation to a blog post Ed made last week, how to mentor up and coming developers, and the history of PHP on Windows.

They also talk about Ed's The Developer's Dystopian Future article, PHP-GTK and the PHPMentoring project. You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly.

The NetTuts.com site has posted part nine in their series sharing helpful hints and methods for refactoring legacy code. In this new post they continue on with their example application and look at where methods should be moved to/created and mocking in their tests.

In this tutorial, we will continue to focus on our business logic. We will evaluate if RunnerFunctions.php belongs to a class and if so, to which class? We will think about concerns and where methods belong. Finally, we will learn a little bit more about the concept of mocking.

They show how to move some of the "Runner" functions from procedural to OOP, integrating them with some of the classes and methods that already exist. Tests are also included showing how it all links together. From there they get into concerns about the placement of functionality and how that relates to the work at hand. They also use Mockery to mock out some of the needed objects in their tests for the new structure.

Phil Sturgeon has posted about something he calls the "neverending muppet debate of PHP 6 versus PHP 7. As the PHP language moves forward, the PHP 5.x series is coming to a close. The discussion as started up whether to name it "PHP 6" or "PHP 7" and both sides have their proponents.

There are a few major, important conversations happening in the PHP internals mailing list as we speak: The Facebook lot heading up a specification based off of PHP 5.6 Should phpng be moved into master to be the base of the next major PHP version How can we best go about scalar typehinting? There is also another conversation: Should it be PHP 6 or PHP 7 Wait... what?

He goes on to provide a little context, pointing out that back in 2010 PHP 6 was being slated for release as the next major version of the language (this was around the PHP 5.2 days). Unfortunately, it stalled out and some of what was planned went into PHP 5.3. This didn't stop publishers from releasing books and articles about "PHP 6" though. It's already being put up for a vote with "PHP 7" pulling ahead. Phil also includes more context around the discussions, sharing the main points of each side and snippets from the RFC and mailing list thread currently ongoing.