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There are many ways PHP applications are deployed on production servers. Some people use SCMs like Subversion to fetch latest revision of code. Others simply transfer the files via FTP, SSH or rsync.

There is one problem with all of these approaches.

They are error prone.

File transfer is only part of the deployment process. If something needs to be configured, built or run afterwards it’s often performed manually.

During the first international Symfony Live conference Fabien Potencier introduced Symfony 2. It’s a next generation framework which will change PHP world forever. I already wrote about the highlights of the conference and revealing the Symfony 2 was the most awaited.

It’s only a preview release and first stable version is expected at the end of 2010. Even so the framework already looks very impressive.

Read on to get an overview of all its new and cool features. Symfony finally gets its capital ‘S’!

image credit: symfony-live.com

I’ve just returned from the first international Symfony Live conference in Paris. There are currently a lot of great things happening in the symfony (and Symfony ) world which I’d like to share.

Here are the highlights of what has happened in the symfony world and what we can expect in the near future.

Lime is a testing tool bundled with symfony. It can be, however, used separately with any PHP application.

It is a great alternative for famous PHPUnit. Its advantage is simplicity. Since writing tests with lime is dead easy it’s a perfect choice for unit testing newbies.

PHP 5 Zend Certified Engineer is the most known and respected title for PHP developers. Currently, at the end of 2009, there are only 3493 Zend Certified Engineers worldwide. 2542 of them are certified in PHP 5.

Surprisingly it isn’t  really hard to pass the exam. With proper approach and materials it is even quite easy.

Let me share with you a  few tips which will let you pass the exam so you could also be listed on PHP Yellow Pages.

Recently I’ve migrated GOYELLO’s Redmine installation to Gentoo Linux. I’ve used nginx as a load balancer and proxy to Mongrel Cluster. Read on to learn more about the installation process of this flexible and scalable setup.

The purpose of using widely available frameworks is surprisingly not always clear to everyone. Some even prefer not to use any framework at all. Obviously for some it may be  harder to understand than for others. The question remains: why using Open Source frameworks is so important and valuable?

Ubuntu 9.10, code name Karmic Koala, has just been released. It not only includes the usual improvements and updates but comes with a lot of new stuff. Some components of the system were completely replaced with modern equivalents. A complete overview is available on the Ubuntu website. Here I will describe the 6 features I have been waiting for.

Last weekend I had a pleasure to attend the PHP North West Conference in Manchester. Everything started on Friday evening, one day before the actual event, with a pre-conference socializing in the Lass O’ Gowrie pub. I really enjoyed meeting and talking to so many people involved in the PHP community. Everyone, regardless of experience, were very kind and keen to exchange their points of view. Informal meetings with beer, food and video games are really good environment for expanding your social network. I guess it might be even more effective than exchanging views between the conference sessions.

Quite a Big Bang, that is a pretty good expression about a growing phenomenon of social networking. The popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is increasing at astonishing rates, especially this last one. Although Twitter still has a long way to go, I am really amazed by its growth rate. Along with the one-millionth word in English language – Web 2.0 – we obtained a decent tool, which can be used in a number of ways. But they also pose new challenges!