On the Zend Framework blog they're asking for your help with the project's documentation. They're looking to the users and community members around the framework to help them make the documentation more useful and stay up to date.

A piece of software is only as good as its documentation. The Zend Framework team and a dozen or so contributors are working hard to improve the Zend Framework 2 documentation, but we still want you to help us improve it even more. Any kind of help is welcome and greatly appreciated.

Most of what they're looking for is clarity - they want to ensure that what's in the manual makes sense (and is correct for the release it relates to). They're also looking for feedback on what helps you learn best - tutorials, user guides, API docs, etc. Issues and suggestions should be posted to the issue tracker in github. If you're not sure where to start, check out the contributors guide.

For anyone looking to get started helping on the Zend Framework 2 project but not sure where to begin, Robert Basic has some recommendations of places to look.

OK, here are some tips and resources so you can start helping out and contributing to Zend Framework 2.0.

Things on the list include:

• a getting started page on the ZF wiki
• Fixing unit tests on the framework
• working on the port of ZendService
• Porting patches from ZF1 to ZF2
• Check out the quickstart on github to get the ball rolling

Pablo Viquez has put together something that all of the Windows-based Zend Framework developers might find very useful during their next offline (or online, really) development session - a Windows Help file version of the Zend Framework manual.

As you might now, you can view and download the Zend Framework reference manual from the Zend Framework site and download it from the download section, however what I wanted was the Windows compiled version of it (CHM file). In order to get this version you need to compile the documentation, after running into some small issues, I manage to do it, and to save you some work.

He only had to fix an issue with one XML file to correct some escaping in the Zend_Feed_Writer.xml and zend.feed.writer.html files. You can download both the English CHM and the Spanish CHM files depending on your needs.

Want to help out on the PHP project but not sure where to start? Lukas Smith suggests helping out with the wiki (at wiki.php.net).

I feel that I can make more of a difference in these other [personal] projects. [...] I hope others will pick up the slack and make sure that PDO gets love, at people diligently follow up on todo items mentioned on internals and that someone else picks up wiki.php.net and takes care of some regular maintenance stuff.

He mentions one thing specifically - an update that will need to happen to the Dokuwiki software the wiki runs on. If you're interested, send Lukas an email/leave a comment and he'll point you in the right direction.

Blake has posted some of his opinions on "best practices" that can help you land that new job you've been looking for:

The last couple of weeks have been quite the experience for me. I was part of a big layoff at my former company, which was interesting. I've never been in that position before, and it's hard not to take it personally. [...] Before the face-to-face portion, I chatted with the owner and head programmer on a conference call, and they ended up sending me a technical assessment quiz.

In the quiz, there was one question the prompted him to come up with his tips - ten things that you can do to keep your code clean, lean and easy to maintain. His tips include things like "use single-quotes around array indexes", "don't use open short tags" and "document your code". Some of the suggestions don't make that much of a difference, but others (like the documentation one) can make the world of difference down the line.

Leo Buttiker has posted about an upcoming event for the PHP community, the Swiss conference OpenExpo 2008.

At 24./25. of September 2008 there will be the OpenExpo in Winterthur. I will be in charge of the PHP booth. I am looking for PHP-Developers, -Evangelists and -Fanboys (and girls) to help me out.

PHPers already attending include Harry Fuecks, Lukas Smith and Chregu Stocker. If you're interested in helping out at this year's conference, see his post for more details on contact methods.

The PHP::Impact blog has posted a list of thirty classes and components that can make your PHP development life so much easier:

Simplicity and extensibility are the main reasons why PHP became the favourite dynamic language of the Web. In the last decade, PHP has developed from a niche language for adding dynamic functionality to small websites to a powerful tool making strong inroads into large-scale Web systems.

Their list includes software like:

• LINQ for PHP
• Doctrine
• HTML Purifier
• SimpleTest
• Phing
• PHP Security Scanner
• SimplePie
• Smarty

...and many more. Check out the full list for all sorts of useful tools.

Stoyan Stefanov posts about some handy PHP development tools that he's added to his TextPad software and wanted to share with the community.

There's four tools in the list (links off of his Tools menu):

• PHP lint (a.k.a. syntax check)
• PHP help
• PHP Manual
• JS Lint

On ones like the PHP manual, it's really a link to a browser that opens the right page on the PHP.net website.

Everyone in the PHP community (as is probably true all around the web) is buzzing about the new offering from Google - the Google Code Search. In the PHP community, the ones talking about it so far include:

• Chris Shiflett's look at the security aspect of the search
• Ilia Alshanetsky's take on the search as it possibly being a hacker's good friend
• Pierre-Alain Joye's searches for macros and the term "virtual_file_ex"
• Harry Fuecks' own search for superglobal-related issues
• Ivo Jansch's happy look into frustrations other developers have had (ex. this search)
• Martin Brotzeller's comments on the new tool

Check out this handy tool and see what you think. Does it provide too much access to code that needs to stay out of hacker's hands? Or does it promote the "open" in open source better than most of the tools out there?

The Zend Developer Zone has posted some information about some freelancing work that the International Press Association is looking to have done.

If you've got spare cycles and want to help a brother out, read on. I received this from Leonard Rapoport of the International Press Association, (Disclaimer: Zend is a member of the IPA) The IPA is looking for some help. As you can see from the email below, they need a PHP programmer to help them out on some small projects and know of some larger projects they could turn you on it.

Any interested parties should contact Leonard via email and get things started.