One of the better inventions of the 21st Century is with no doubt PHP-Gtk. Released in March 2001, in an effort to show that PHP isn't just a web scripting language, PHP-Gtk offers coders running GTK the opportunity to create custom desktop applications without having to meddle outside of their language of choice.

In this quote from PHPBuilder.com's new article, Installing PHP-GTK on Linux, you get an idea that PHP-Gtk has more power inside it than most developers let on. They show you how to install, configure, and even give you a sample script to use to test your installation. The script is pretty simple, but will help you down the road, since it identifies where your PHP binaries are and how to load the Gtk module.

As I said, this is one of those areas that there's so much potention for in PHP, but right now, it's pretty difficult to use and to get working, so many people have stayed clear of it.