As Danne Lundqvist mentions in a new post, there's a new post on the Gartner.com site about the past, present and future of the PHP language.

From the Gartner post:

I just published a research note on PHP. Clients can find it here. The research note goes into *much* more detail but the overview is [in the rest of the post]. Keep in mind that this content is targeted at mainstream IT organizations. PHP has been a cornerstone technology on the Web for more than a decade. While its adoption among mainstream IT organizations has been limited in the past, many corporate application development (AD) projects are discovering the unique benefits of PHP.

Danne highlights two quotes that were of particular interest in the report - one from the quote above about PHP being a cornerstone of many corporate web application development and the other talking about PHP's role not just in backend application development but also it being useful in front-end toolsets too.

Sebastian Bergmann has poted about a new something that he'll also be doing at this year's OSCON - leading a discussion about the emPHPower initiative.

As the PHP community grows however, it becomes harder and harder for people to come together from the various corners of the community. [...] That being said, maybe there is still something we could change for the better? PHP contributor Lukas Smith has formulated his vision for such an effort in the form of an organization that would serve as a mediator and catalyst between all the members of the PHP community under the code name emPHPower.

The session will be happening on Monday the 21st from 7-8pm.

Christian Wenz has pointed out an older post from Larry Wall talking about the line between scripting and programming languages (mentioning specifically PHP).

From the article "":

I think, to most people, scripting is a lot like obscenity. I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it. [...] If I had to pick one metaphor, it'd be easy onramps. And a slow lane. Maybe even with some optional fast lanes.

Ben Ramsey has a reminder for those attending this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo (or maybe an incentive for those not yet signed up?) about the Unconference that will be happening in its own space where developers can come and present on their own topics.

When was the last time an event challenged your assumptions, and made you think? The PHP Unconference is a way to bring people who have a shared interest in PHP together. It could be just to explore interest in a common theme or it could be to do work together to accomplish a goal.

This year's chairperson is Patrick Reilly and they've posted some basic principles presenters will need to follow as well as a space on the wiki for topic suggestions or ones you'd like to present on.

You can learn more about this year's conference from the main conference website and stop by the zendcon channel on the Freenode IRC network to meet other attendees.