On Reddit.com there's a good discussion going on to answer the question "What non-PHP stuff should a PHP developer know?"

I was looking at job description for a web developer, and one of the big responsibilities was database maintenance. [...] And along those lines, what other skills would be useful for a PHP developer to have that aren't directly PHP-based?

Suggestions so far include things like:

• Linux command-line skills
• some Python
• Virtualization (making and administering VMs)
• Version control systems (svn or git)
• Database architecture
• HTML/CSS/Javascript

On the Ibuildings techPortal site there's a retrospective of the Dutch PHP Conference from this year, 2011.

Before our memories get swamped by our daily lives, let's take a look back at the Dutch PHP Conference 2011. For me, two things stand out when I look back on this years DPC. One was the rate at which ideas were exchanged, both during the regular conference days and at the associated social events. [...] The other thing to stand out was the fact that many talks were not about PHP.

He goes on to talk about the ratios of PHP to non-PHP talks (only 37% were PHP-specific!) and breaks down the non-PHP talks into a few different categories including architecture, tooling, front end development and general framework updates. He also compares this to the PHP talks and came out with some interesting results.

For today's PHP development teams, generic software engineering principles and technologies allied to PHP have become part of their architectures and daily work routine. It is only logical that we want to know more about them and learn about new ones. It is no surprise then, that we see schedules at PHP conferences which include a good proportion of talks that are not directly about PHP itself.

Rafael Dohms has posted a wrapup of this year's php|tek '11 conference and has included some of his thoughts about the "trending technologies" he saw during his time there.

Another edition of php|tek has come and gone and this year some very amazing topics came into view. The conference itself was once again a great experience, great people, incredible speakers, lots of activities and incredible hack-a-thons and unconference sessions.

Topics he noticed coming to the forefront at this year's event included:

• Cloud computing (and the PHP-specific offerings related to it)
• Mobile development
• API and external tool integration

He also mentions one thing he wouldn't mind seeing more of at events - the "soft skills" sort of presentations. They're less about the technology that's used and more about the "people skills" developers can use to make the best of their careers.

The php|architect folks have released their latest newscast episode - the one for November 22, 2007. Topics mentioned in this episode include:

• php|architect's new site
• PHP 5.2.5's release
• FastCGI and PHP
• What's coming up in PHP 5.3

As always, you can grab the latest show directly from the site or subscribe to their feed to get this and other great episodes to keep up with all of the happenings of the PHP community.

In a new post to his blog today, Stuart Herbert continues the theme he started in a previous post about a business case for PHP. In this new entry, he shares some things he's done to further the effort.

To turn this from an idea into reality, I've setup a Google group where anyone who is interested can join in, and help build this resource. Please come along with your ideas and concerns, and let's see what we can achieve together.

He also suggests some "first steps" to get the ball rolling, namely a list of topics the business case needs to cover.

In a new blog post, Ligaya Turmelle reminds us about the Call for Papers that's still open for this year's OSCON - but not for much longer.

Anyway, here is the link for submitting a proposal and the currently listed tracks include Linux, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, Databases, Desktop Applications, Web Applications (client-side and server-side), Windows, Administration, Security, and Emerging Topics.

The deadline for entry is this coming Monday, February 5th (2007) and all entrants much submit the form for their entries to be considered.

Pierre points out one of the other PHP conferences happening this fall, December 1st and 2nd of 2006.

The PHP Conference Brazil is an event in Brazil to strengthen the Brazilian community, and encourage relationships among the professionals that use the language.

The event will be happening the 1 and 2 of December with the support of the ProPHP group. Divided up into two days, the PHP Conference Brazil will have two keynote speakers and many diverse lectures on different themes related to PHP.

Topics they are looking to be covered include: PDO in PHP5, Design Patterns, creation/use o fextensions in PHP, web services, Smarty, and the Zend Certification. There will also be another track of more beginner/intermediate level talks to give people just starting out a leg up.

You can get complete information from the conference website, including a map to the location and how to submit your talks for consideration.

DevShed continues their look at creating a simple treaded discussion foum with part two in the series, a focus on creating the administrator panel to help you manage users and the topics/comments they make.

This article, the second of two parts, will show you how to set up an administration area for a threaded discussion forum, and some of the functions you might want an administrator to manage.

Included is the functionality to get a listing of all of the topics, delete topics quickly, start a new topics, and manage a "blacklist" of bad words to keep out of the discussions. Of course, the code is all there and they explain each piece of it. They keep it simple though - the code is pretty procedural with only functions dividing up the functionality into the pieces.

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.

Tobias Schlitt shares some of his toughts on one of his latest in a list of books to read - Exporing PHP.

Although I did not read it, yet, I'd like to recommend it to you, since I think to know the authors good enough to believe they write good books.

In short, "Exploring PHP" is a roundup about advanced PHP programming experiences, covering different topics like: Event driven programming in PHP, Generation of 3D graphics, Refactoring and Migration, PHP6.

From the little that he's looked into the book, he can already tell it's a good resource and is recommending it based on that and the authors it comes from.