LinuxPower: Interview with the PHP Team Nov 15, 1999, 18 :29 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (3713 reads) (Other stories by Erik and Jeremy)
"PHP is a server-side scripting language which is embedded in
your HTML. One of its largest strengths (in my opinion) is the ease with which it interacts with databases. In some ways, PHP is much like Perl
in that it is used in the creation of dynamic web pages. The next version of PHP, PHP 4, is currently in beta. It is powered by a new backend
engine, Zend, which, well, read below to find out more...."
"Jeremy: What prompted the writing of the Zend engine as a backend for PHP 4?"
"Andi: After Zeev and I completed the PHP 3 engine we were not happy with its speed, limitations and architecture. Therefore, at some point
we decided to completely rewrite it from scratch."
"Jeremy: Outside of Zend, what are the other new features in PHP 4?"
"Stig: We've done a lot of work on the build process on UNIX, making each function module (extension) and server module independent and
self-contained. It will also be much easier for vendors distributing PHP to build dynamically loadable PHP extensions. The session support looks
to become the most popular new feature, but there is lots more functionality in 4.0: native support for AOLserver, an FTP client extension,
multiple file uploads, being able to read multi-dimensional arrays from get/post/cookie data, output buffering, a whole bunch of new array
manipulation functions and improvements to existing extensions. And most important: it takes ages to compile now. :-) "
