From PHPClasses.org today, there's a new article describing the combination of a few technologies - more specifically Ajax, Comet, and PHP - to create responsive applications.

This post describes an approach used to implement highly responsive AJAX applications using the COMET approach. It describes in detail how the AJAX COMET approach can be implemented in PHP.

It also discusses how HTTP compression and chunking affect AJAX response delays, as well aspects that may influence the choice between Apache 1.3.x with mod_gzip versus Apache 2.x with mod_deflate for AJAX COMET applications.

Manuel breaks the tutorial up into sections:

• Multiple response AJAX requests
• COMET: Multiple response AJAX request implementation
• HTTP compression
• Page compression delays
• Avoiding mod_gzip dechunking
• Apache 2.2.x with mod_deflate

For each topic, there's a bit of explaination and some links to reinforce the ideas. There's not really any code, but he does link to various classes that can help combine to meet the goal.

If you missed the Zend Webcast talking about "Advanced PHP Solutions" with Zeev Suaski, ComputerWorld has your chance to grab the download from it.

PHP continues to enjoy phenomenal growth becoming the de-facto standard for enterprise Web applications. With the introduction of PHP 5, PHP has reached new levels of support for Web Services, XML and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) meeting the robust demands of the enterprise environment. Learn how you can achieve scalability, performance, availability and reliability for your enterprise-class PHP applications with advanced PHP solutions from Zend Technologies.

In the webcast, Zeev talks about integrating web services, tracking and improving the response times in your application, scaling your applications, and troubleshooting applications down to the exact line of code.

The PHPit.net site has posted a book review today, a look at Packt Publishing's "AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications".

Welcome to the first book review on PHPit, which is the first one in the new "Book Reviews" section on PHPit. There are many PHP & MySQL books these days, and more are being released every day, which makes it a hard task to pick a good PHP book. That's why I've decided to create this new section which will help you pick the best PHP books available. I will take a look at certain PHP books, and do a thorough review on each of them. Every review will end with a conclusion and a recommendation.

Overall, the review seems positive, though the reviewer notes that the book seems a bit basic at times. He mentions the basic contents - topics like Javascript, XML, XMLHttpRequest, and browser issues one might come across. Theses basics get you ready for the main two sections - client and server-side development. He notes, though, that unless you're very new to the whole Ajax and PHP thing, you might not learn much here.