On the ThinkPHP blog there's a quick note about a study they've done on the relevance of business goals in the architecture of PHP applications.

PHP software developers and system integrators actually play an important role in running the world's largest web infrastructures. From Facebook, Gruner & Jahr, Kabel Deutschland and Lufthansa to a diversity of corporations, they all trust PHP and the respective systems built with it. It is not questionable that these systems provide a solid software architecture. The point of interest is how these architectures are aligned to the fast pace of changing business goals, which categories of business goals are considered during architecture creation and which means are utilised in projects.

The study (a 24-page study, in English) looks at some of the current strategies businesses are using in their application development, how to consider the right business goals and putting an emphasis on quality and capability of your organization. The study is free, but you'll need to register to get a copy emailed to you.

In a new article from php|architect Joel Clermont shares a few henlpful hints on what he did to help prepare for the Zend Framework Certification Exam.

Well, the only two official resources are a downloadable study guide and an instructor-led course. The study guide lists all the main areas of the framework that will be tested and offers a high level explanation of how they work. [...] I don't have any personal experience with the course, so I can't offer any specific comments on it. I have taken other courses from Zend, however, and the quality of those have been quite good.

He also points out this presentation from Rob Allen as another source. His recommendation, though, is that you read as much as possible from the Zend Framework's manual, but leaving out points on Zend_Tool and Zend_Application (they didint seem to make it into the test). He passed on the first try, so hopefully this advice, somewhat proven now, can help you down the right path.

Davey Shafik has posted a quick update about the php|architect guide to the Zend PHP5 Certification exam and its updates.

Just a quick note to say that the second edition of the study guide has been released. It features all erratta items fixed, as well as a new chapter on Database Programming. If you didn't grab it yet, it makes a great reference for any intermediate and above developer, as well as obviously being the study guide that it is meant to be

You can get more information on the book (and place your order) on the book's website - zceguide.com.

All of you women of the PHP community looking to train up for the Zend Certification Exam should check out this new post on the phpwomen.org website:

Get ready to dive in to certification studies! Join fellow phpWomen members in the new ZCE Study Group forum for some question and answer and a lot of test prep.

The forum looks to cover a number of the topics specifically related to the exam and help others with questions and/or problems they might have with understanding a concept.

As posted over on the Zend Developer Zone, Marc Gear has posted a new review over on his blog of the guide that php|architect magazine has created to help prepare developers for Zend's PHP 5 Certification.

I brought the book to make sure that my knowledge was sufficient to take the test [...] however, having read most of the book last night, I think it would be a good addition to my bookshelf, especially to lend to other developers on my team.

He briefly covers the topics in the book (including basics, functions, stream, security, etc) and a general impression of how the book presented them overall. His opinion of the resource is definitely a good one, summed up well by the above comments.

His only complaint was a small one (and not even about the content of the book) - that the spine was printed upside down so it looks a bit odd on the shelf.

In a new post over on his blog today, Davey Shafik has announced the winners of the Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide competition he and php|architect were sponsoring.

To enter the contest, one only needed to come up with a proposal for the Zend Framework and submit it to the site as well. The top three ended up being:

• Rob Allen - Zend_Db_Schema_Manager.
• Thomas Weidner - Zend_TimeSync
• Andries Seutens - efforts in moving documentation from DocBook to Wiki format

Prizes for the competition ranged from a copy of Zend Studio and a PHP 5 Certification Voucher out to a year's subscription to php|architect magazine.

If you want to write PHP scripts that handle email, there are a few things you need to understand first. This article, the first of two parts, introduces you to these concepts.

The article is an excerpt from the Zend PHP Certification Guide and focuses on some of the basics of handling email with PHP. There's some knowledge that you'll need to have before you get started, but the rest is pretty simple stuff. It's walked through at a good pace, making it easy to follow and a good beginner's resource.

Topics they discuss include working with MX records, preparing your PHP installation to handle emails, and sending an email from your script (including instructions for both Unix and Windows based systems).

On the Zend Developer Zone today, there's an interview with the co-authors of the recently released book from php|architect, the Zend Certification Study Guide.

The new Zend Certification Study Guide is out and the initial reviews look good. Since this was a topic of interest to me (mainly because I've yet to take the test) I decided to dig a little deeper. I fired up my recorder and called Davey Shafik and Ben Ramsey, the authors of the new guide, to talk to them. Here to give you a little of the back story is our conversation.

They talk about:

• the release of the book
• some of the contents of the chapters (including the sample chapter on security)
• Davey's experience with the exam/Ben's use of his PHP4 certification in his work
• and the practice tests that php|architect is offering to get developers prepared.

Matthew Magain has some interesting observations over on the SitePoint Ruby on Rails blog today - specifically that PHP developers are the most likely (out of those working with other web-based languages out there) to make the switch to Ruby on Rails.

Of all the graphs in The State of Web Development 2006/2007 report that SitePoint and Ektron published recently, the one that stood out the most to me was the one showing the platform currently being used by developers planning to start using Ruby on Rails.

It wasn't the fact that the graph shows PHP developers to be likely to start using Rails-this makes sense, as someone is more likely to experiment with another open source platform if they're already using another open source platform-it was the fact that PHP developers are more than three times as likely to start using Rails, even more so than Java developers!

Unfortunately, the study mentioned isn't too cheap, otherwise it would be interesting to see the info behind this graph....

The folks over at php|architect have release another resource to help get you certified as a Zend Certified Engineer - the Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide.

php|architect's Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide, edited and produced by the publishers of php|architect, provides the most comprehensive and thorough preparation tool for developers who wish to take the exam.

This book provides complete coverage of every topic that is part of the exam, for more information, see the chapters & source code.

Chapters for the book cover topics like the PHP basics, Strings and Patterns, Object Oriented Programming, Security, and XML/Web Services. Check out this sample chapter to get a taste of what's inside.

Also, check out the blog entries on the book from the two authors - Ben Ramsey and Davey Shafik.