You've checked and double checked the integrity of user input, and you're doing some serious processing. There's only one problem: it's too slow. There's a simple solution: forking your processing script, and running the code as a background process asynchronously. It can email your user when it's done: they'll wait. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to get started with background processes in PHP.

Akash gives examples of the three keys to background processes - starting the script via an exec, talking to the process by passing additional parameters and including code to monitor the state of the background process via something like a MySQL "sessions" table that the script writes to.

• The prd() convenience function
• How to debug your CakePHP emails?
• Use elements where possible and make them belong to the controller
• Combine your h1 titles with Cake's page title
• Avoid long parameter lists

Each tip comes complete with code and a brief explanation of its use.

Basically, Zend_Controller_Action is the parent of all of the controllers in your application. This controller is what C stands for in MVC, a design pattern used lately in web application development, especially in RIA development.

The post includes a tutorial on using the parameters in an example of a design pattern.

I thought, hey I wonder how long it'd take in php.. so I was working on it and I actually couldn't remember all those funny extra parameters in simplexml_* so if you are googling and cannot find something that says exactly what you want well here it is.

His example includes two additional parameters in his simplexml_load_string call to handle the CDATA section correctly and make accessing the data inside the block just like getting at anything else in the object.

Note that Rob Richards has also commented on the post that this issue was corrected a while back and it shouldn't be needed anymore, but could effect older versions of the SimpleXML functionality.

Be that as it may, as a user with about five years under his belt as of now who has seen all qualities of PHP code ranging from pristine to pedantic, a thought or two has crossed my mind on the subject of the latest upcoming incarnation of the language.

Specifically, he talks about some of the hot topics like namespaces, the mysqlnd driver, Unicode support, and named parameters. Overall, though, his comments are positive, looking toward a brighter future for PHP with this upcoming edition.

It would be really useful to have an easy way to pass arrays as bound parameters to queries or procedures from PHP. This would be especially useful if you're letting Oracle handle most of your data manipulating (as you should).

She includes an example of how she's like it to work. Sadly, it doesn't but there are some ways that a developer could get close. Here's her process:

• No queries in loops, please!
• In the ideal world...
• Put all your DML in stored procedures.
• str2tbl
• The list_pkg package
• list_pkg in your procedure
• list_pkg in your PHP
• Leveraging list_pkg

The list_pkg is based around this article from AskTom.

When your code assigns to a parameter in a function/method, use a temporary variable instead. [...] It will make your code much more readable and prevents by-reference confusion and therefore big problems in the future.

His example code uses the illustration of calling a price() method in a class to modify the inputVal value based on other inputted information. His suggestion is to not work with the actual inputVal value passed in (so as to avoid issues if it happens to be passed my reference later), but to work with a temporary variable - $result - inside the method.

Here are 20 possible reasons why PHP functions lack consistent names and parameters. Learning the definition for every PHP function is truly an amazing feat and I doubt this has been attempted or accomplished by anyone. At least, by any sane human. And references are named references because they are designed to be referenced, right?

Items on the list include:

• PHP likes BC
• PHP says all your namespace are belong to us
• PHP function naming algorithm still remains a secret and cannot be cracked
• PHP isn't designed to win a beauty contest

So, if you are not smart, then stop coding PHP. Its a good thing that C developers are smart. They have to remember all those functions. Assembly language developers don't have to remember functions. I guess they are not smart?

Ok, that last paragraph was tongue in cheek. Knowing 3000+ functions does not make you smart. It means you have a good memory. I will take intelligence over smart or a good memory any day.

His comments on the "object nonsense" makes note of the difference between functions and methods and the function naming issue - well, he has "no solid defense" as they do make it difficult to learn the language and send some developers running back to the manual to make sure the parameter order is right each time.

His list consists of:

• Closures
• { } is the new array()
• Parameter Collection in Functions
• Late Static Binding
• Backwards Compatibility

Each is explained, some with code to illustrate.