The Symfony project has officially introduced something that can help with the future of your Symfony-related code/plugin - the ability to deprecate the plugin (via the plguin system) and let everyone using it know it's no longer in development.

There are several reasons why a plugin may be deprecated. The symfony core framework might have included the functionality of the plugin in a recent release, or another plugin with the same functionality might be doing a better job at it. Whatever the reason, a developer is now able to mark a plugin as deprecated. This is simply done in the administration panel of the plugin.

A message will pop up when the plugin is next used to let the developers of the site know the deprecation status of the plugin - complete with a custom message.

On the IBM developerWorks blog the next article in their "What's new in PHP V5.3" series has been posted. In this fifth part looks at some of the changes and issues you might face when making the upgrade (including slightly modified function behavior and deprecated functions).

In this final part of the series, learn about things to consider when upgrading from PHP V5.2. There are changes that break backward-compatibility and features that are deprecated in PHP V5.3 for removal in future versions. Some enhancements to existing features within PHP are also covered.

Changes included in the list are:

• Syntax changes
• Changes to functions and methods
• Extension changes
• Build changes
• Deprecated items