On PHPMaster.com today there's a new tutorial that shares a few regular expression tips about doing some search and replace in your content.

So how can you practice using regex if you are limited to just using them in your code? The answer is to use a utility, of which there are many, that uses regex for performing search and replace. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the standard "find x and replace it with y" type of search and replace. Most IDEs and text editors have built in regex engines to handle search and replace. In this article I'd like to walk through a series of exercises to help you practice using regex.

His examples are based on Netbeans but can be used in just about any IDE that supports regex (or even just your code). He shows how to match word boundaries, do some grouping, work with back references and doing some search/replace based on multiple groupings.

In a new video blog post on his site today Stefan Mischook talks about PHP development and the concept of "good enough" that some developers can have a hard time with when trying to perfect code.

One of the mistakes web developers make is to spend too much time perfecting the code base in a project. This waste too much time and ignores one very important fact: you need to get the software into the users hands as quickly as possible, so they can give you feedback.

In his short video (stick with it, he talks dev at about 2:35) he talks about the concept of not getting caught up too much in quality of the code at the sake of the progress of the project. He mentions a non-programming related allegory of the PS3 and XBox 360 and the "first to market" advantage that it has.

After having recently taken the PHP5 Zend Certified Engineer exam, Mike Bernat decided to shares some experiences about the time he spent preparing and his opinions on the test.

I decided that I wanted to take the test about 2 1/2 months ago. The first thing I did was visit the site and learn more about the exam itself. I discovered it covers almost every facet of the language and its use. [...] It's been mentioned before and I agree that none of these resources [websites, books, etc] alone are enough to make you feel confident going into the test. Rather, a combination of each resource should be taken advantage of to feel fully prepared.

He specifically mentions two books - the official Zend guide and the php|architect study guide - as well as some of the online testing he went through.

On the real test, he warns those looking to task it in the future of a few things - the trick questions, code blocks and some of the tougher subjects to watch out for.

In this recent article from ServerSide Magazine they look at a security issue that can be hard to detect if you're not sure what you're looking for - session hijacking - and how you can help to prevent it on your site.

A must have for the attacker in a session hijack is the Session Identifier so he can impersonate the attack. Let's presume for example that you have your website hosted on a shared hosting on which PHP is installed as an Apache module, thing that makes session files belong to the web user, in other words: accessible.

He breaks it out into three potential kinds of session hijack methods - prediction, capture and fixation - with definitions for each. He also makes recommendations of some secure practices to follow to help prevent some of these issues (like not trusting users, using $_COOKIE and $_SESSION correctly and using a security token too along with the session ID).

On the Ibuildings blog there's a new post that looks to answer the question "is PHP an agile programming language?"

In raising the question about whether a specific programming language is agile I want to avoid exploring what makes a language agile, or comparing PHP with other languages. The intention here is not to associate PHP to agile as a natural relationship, as much as to try and understand if we can find the ingredients in the PHP world, for creating an agile environment.

He (Marcello Duarte) first defines agile development practices for those not familiar and talks about the tools that PHP has to offer that fit in with that goal. He notes that PHP fits in well with the goals of agile development in being both light and powerful.

Brian DeShong has posted some of his "food for thought" on the development process that's behind the scenes of different PHP applications.

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking on development processes and quality, specifically for large-scale, professional PHP-based projects. [...] Generally speaking, my perception is that software development shops that really care about and emphasize quality have processes that consist of things such as writing use cases, unit testing and continuous integration.

He knows how he feels about all of this, be he wants to hear back from the community. How far does quality assurance go in your group? What kind of time/funding does this involve? Leave him a comment and let him know...

The Developer Tutorials Blog has a few helpful hints about getting yourself a freelance PHP job posted today:

The problem with PHP is this: in years gone by it was typically seen as an amateur, hobbyist language. The state of the language at the time didn't exactly either. [...] As a result, many (if not most) of the freelance PHP jobs out there today involve maintaining this code of yesteryear. It's mostly PHP 4, no OOP, terrible coding standards, no thought for best practices and so on.

The list reads more like a "back to fundamentals" listing - three things: practice, advertise and reach out. No tips about fancy resume or making the power moves to climb up and over the competition - it's just the basics of what you need to get started and get your foot wedged firmly in the door.

As Eli White points out on his blog today, his (and Jonathan Eisenhamer's) book "PHP 5 in Practice" has been reviewed on Slashdot.

The book was authored by Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer, and put out in July 2006 by Sams Publishing (an imprint of Pearson Education). Given today's standards of hefty technical books, this particular one is relatively light, weighing in at 456 pages, which are organized into an introduction, numerous chapters, and three appendices.

The review goes on to detail some of the contents of the book and some of the different perspectives it gives to using the language itself. The book does its best to cover a wide range of topics, but mainly broken up into two parts - PHP internals and applications. Be sure and check out the full review for an even more in depth look at the rest of the book and their thoughts on the validity and usefulness of the book.

On the KillerPHP blog today, Stefan Mischook has written up a book review of a popular book from Sams Publishing - "PHP 5 in Practice" by Elliott White and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer.

This is a very good book, actually one of the best recipe books I've read period. You can tell that the authors are still actively writing code - you can feel it as you read the chapters.

The review also lists out some of the contents of the book including sample recipes and the "quick hits" section.

Cal Evans of the Zend Developer Zone has posted a new book review for one of Sams Publishing's latest PHP-related offerings, "PHP 5 In Practice" by Elliott "Eli" White III (Senior Programmer over at digg.com.

First let me say, if you are new to PHP or programming in general, skip this book. This is not a how to or even a cookbook for simple concepts. To get the most from this book you need to have a firm grounding in programming.

He sets the tone for the rest of the interview right there, noting that most of the book is made up of little examples, helpful bits to fill a need rather than teaching you the basics (or more advanced features) of PHP as a language. Cal spotlights this kind of content by talking about the "binary tree implementation" section. Check out the rest of the review for the full story.