In a recent post Brian Moon points out an advancement in something he's very excited about - the MySQL native driver for PHP.

I have been excited about the MySQL native drive (mysqlnd) since I first heard about it. They are looking for testers now.

Brian also includes comments about the fact that the driver was originally intended for use in PHP6 and how some people have been talking about a back-port to PHP4 for those still hanging on.

Check out this post from Lukas Smith on the same subject with a bit more information on what the driver is and what it could mean for the PHP community as a whole.