The PHP.net has announced the availability of the latest Release Candidate in the PHP 5.4.0 series - PHP 5.4.0 RC6:

The PHP development team announces the 6th release candidate of PHP 5.4. PHP 5.4 includes new language features and removes several legacy (deprecated) behaviours. Windows binaries can be downloaded from the Windows QA site. [...] The 6th release candidate focused on improving traits. Please test them carefully and help us to identify bugs in order to ensure that the release is solid and all things behave as expected.

You can download this latest release from the PHP QA site (Windows binaries) and test it on your local instance/applications. Any and all feedback about issues should be reported to either the QA mailing list or on the bug tracker. A complete list of updates is available in the NEWS file.

As mentioned on the main PHP.net site, the latest Release Candidate in the PHP 5.4.x series has been released - PHP 5.4.0RC3:

The PHP development team is proud to announce the third release candidate of PHP 5.4. PHP 5.4 includes new language features and removes several legacy (deprecated) behaviours. Windows binaries can be downloaded from the Windows QA site. THIS IS A RELEASE CANDIDATE - DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!. This is the third release candidate. The release candidate phase is intended as a period of bug fixing prior to the stable release. No new features should be included before the final version of PHP 5.4.0.

Major changes include the introduction of UTS #46 mapping support in the intl extension and the inclusion of SERVER_NAME and SERVER_PORT into the $_SERVER superglobal for CLI. You can find more changes listed in the NEWS file and can download the latest from the PHP.net site (or your favorite mirror): source, Windows binaries.

On the PHP.net site today they've announced the release of the latest Release Candidate in the PHP 5.4 series - PHP 5.4 RC1.

The PHP development team is proud to announce the first release candidate of PHP 5.4. PHP 5.4 includes new language features and removes several legacy (deprecated) behaviours. Windows binaries can be downloaded from the Windows QA site. [...] This is the first release candidate. No new features will be included before the final version of PHP 5.4.0. The release candidate phase is intended as a period of bug fixing prior to the stable release.

Major changes include class member access on instantiation, array to string conversion now throws a notice and bugs fixes/improvements to Core and other extensions. For a complete list, check out the NEWS file. Download this latest release

The PHP.net site has a new announcement about the latest version of the language in the PHP 5.4.x series - beta 2 has been released for testing.

The PHP development team is proud to announce the second beta release of PHP 5.4. PHP 5.4 includes new language features and removes several legacy (deprecated) behaviours. Windows binaries can be downloaded from the Windows QA site. [...] Please help us to identify bugs by testing new features and looking for unintended backward compatibility breaks, so we can fix the problems and fully document intended changes before PHP 5.4.0 is released. Report findings to the QA mailing list and/or the PHP bug tracker.

Remember - this is not a production release, so do not use it in your live applications (unless you really like to live dangerously, of course). You can look at the NEWS file for a complete list of changes.

The PHP development group has officially released the alpha3 of PHP 5.4 as ready for testing. Rasmus Lerdorf comments:

PHP 5.4 alpha3 is available for testing now. Please give us a hand and compile it on your platform and run a "make test". Download it from http://qa.php.net and you can see the changes in the NEWS file at http://t.co/bBVGj8P

Updates in this alpha include the shortened array syntax, binary numbers format, support for the "Class::{expr}()" syntax, removal of magic quotes related features, a change to include E_STRICT in E_ALL and several others. Head over to the PHP QA site and download this latest version to test in your environment. Remember, environments are unique, so the more test results the better - it helps make for a better quality end result.

On the Zend Developer Zone today they've posted the latest episode of their ZendCon Sessions podcast series - the recording of Michalangelo van Dam's talk "Improving QA on PHP Projects".

In this series we will be releasing sessions from ZendCon 2010! This episode of The ZendCon Sessions was recorded live at ZendCon 2010 in Santa Clara, CA and features Michelangelo van Dam giving his talk: "Improving QA on PHP Projects"

His session looks at various technologies you can use to help improve the QA process for your code including phpDocumentor, PHP_CodeSniffer, PHPDepend and PHPUnit. You can listen to the episode either via the in-page player, by downloading the mp3 or by subscribing to their feed to get this and other great episodes. You can also follow along with his slides over on SlideShare.

In this new post to the "Quality Assurance in PHP Projects" site today, Sebastian Bergmann gives a status update for the English version of their popular (currently German-only) PHP QA book.

The video below [in the post] shows a visualization of activity in the book's Git repository since April 2010. During this timeframe we mostly worked on translating chapters from English to German and editing the chapters for the German edition followed by translating chapters from German to English and editing the English edition's chapters.

The visualization shows the work on the English translation all but stopped at its conclusion. As it stands, the book is scheduled to ship on May 10th, 2011 as Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications. You can pick up your copy over on Amazon if you'd like to reserve one before the shipping date.

On the IBuildings blog there's a new post by Soila Patajoki taking a brief look at TestFest events around the world.

The PHP TestFest is a gathering by PHP enthusiasts that get together to write automated test cases for PHP. These test cases help prevent future incompatibilities and bugs in PHP. The event has grown global over the course of the years, with user groups everywhere in the world participating.

She points out some of the European TestFest events that Ibuildings is helping out with including ones in London, Manchester and Belgium. You can find out more about TestFest-ing and see if there's a group in your area participating on the TestFest page off the main PHP QA site.

Stefan Koopmanschap has posted a few reasons why he thinks you should attend and participate in your local TestFest event.

As I wrote earlier, several TestFest events will be held soon with the biggest one being the European TestFest initiative of quite a big bunch of European usergroups. But why should you attend such a TestFest?

Here's his four reasons:

• To improve PHP
• Improve your own knowledge
• To expand your network
• Because you're friggin cool!

You can find out more about TestFests in your area at this page on PHP's QA website.

PHPFreaks.com has posted this new information about running PHP on a Windows 2008 Server instance and how you can give it a try for thirty days.

Microsoft has been recently engaging in a number of open source projects. They have been working on enhancing performance, security and stability of PHP applications on Windows Server platforms. [...] In cooperation with Microsoft, [we] invite you to trial a Windows based web stack consisting of IIS 7, PHP 5 and SQL Server. Via the PHP on WS 2008 website you will be able to request a 30-day trial with a Microsoft hosting partner

By signing up, you can request a trial of the IIS 7 software. They also provide a Q&A discussion board for those participating in the program that might need any help.