In a new post on the IBM developerWorks page, Nathan Good takes a look at some of the features of the up and coming versions of the PHP language including things like namespaces, changes in the XML handling and a few things taken out.

PHP's next edition, V6, includes new features and syntax improvements that will make it easier to use from an object-oriented standpoint. Other important features, such as Unicode support in many of the core functions, mean that PHP V6 is positioned for better international support and robustness.

New features he mentions include namespace support, improvements to the native Unicode support as well as a few of the things that will be permanently retired like the php.ini settings for magic_quotes and register_globals.

There's a few new Zend Framework tutorials posted today over on the PHPEveryDay.com website:

• Zend Framework Session: Automatic Expiration
• Zend Framework Session: Locking and Unlocking Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Seing All Values at Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Accessing Session Data
• Zend Framework Session: Using Namespace
• Zend Framework Session: Introduction

Check out their articles section for even more great PHP-related content.

Antony Dovgal points out that Derick Rethans has added the snapshots for PHP 5.3 to the snaps.php.net website.

Short list of what you can find there: Namespaces, __callstatic() magic method, accessing static members through $foo::myFunc(), fully rewritten ini-parser with .htaccess-like user defined ini files for CGI/FastCGI, improved OpenSSL extension, PCRE 7.4, and other fixes and improvements that will never get into 5_2 branch.

He recommends teching throughly before the major release to find all of the bug before the general public does. Builds for both source and Windows systems have been posted.

On the SitePoint PHP blog today, Troels Knak-Nielsen has written up an article that talks about dependencies in your applications - those little interconnections your code relies on to do more with less.

In lack of better words, I'll call this compositional programming style. It's a style which is usually more prevalent with experienced programmers. [...] There is, however, a dark side to composition - dependencies.

He starts with a definition to bring everyone up to a level field then moves on to how their used (through a "global symbol" or directly passed in) and how they can "leak" if you're not careful.

To help protect you and your code from any kind of damage down the line, Troels suggests making a container to keep objects where they need to be. He even includes an example with namespace support to make things even easier down the road.