New from PHP Magazine today is their latest edition of the PHPBarnstormer - Issue #41.

In this issue, tuck into some interesting discussions from the PHP mailing list: the addition of the FileObject class to SPL, why the stream wrapper scheme identification is '://' rather than the simple ':', why so many PEAR packages were dropped from the most recent PHP 4.3.x releases, and lots more. From the PEAR side of the fence, find answers as to whether the PEAR standards are too overprotective, why it makes sense to make an initial Alpha release and move the PEAR package into Beta later on, and a comprehensive listing of all the recent PEAR packages. From the PECL mailing list, find out how far away APC is from a working PHP 5 release, Rasmus' response, TVision support in PHP, and the recent PECL releases.

Some of the PEAR/PECL Releases spotlighted in this issue include: PEAR-1.4.0a11 (alpha), Text_Highlighter-0.6.4 (beta), XML_SVG-1.0.0 (stable), PEAR_PackageFileManager_GUI_Gtk-1.0.0rc1 (beta), and big_int-1.0.3 (stable).