Zend Updates PHP Scripting Language

Zend Updates PHP Scripting Language:
"Zend 5 includes a new version of the Zend engine, known as Zend Engine II. It also features object orientation, enhanced XML processing and Web services support.

Gutmans said the previous release, PHP 4, came out four years ago and the installed base of users has grown from 1.5 million then to 16 million now.

'The Zend II engine is a complete rewrite of all the object-oriented capabilities in the language,' Gutmans said. The new version features exception handling."

"The reason why object-oriented development gets such a big focus is that the more critical the application becomes the more structured the development becomes," Gutmans said. And as PHP becomes more a part of the enterprise, interoperability becomes important, he said.

The XML extensions in PHP 5 were rewritten to use the GNOME Project's XML and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations libraries. The new version includes a new module, MySQLi, for database support, as well as SQLite, an embedded database.…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1624753,00.asp