It was a long run and I'm sure it felt like an eternity for many - for me it certainly did. PHP 5.3 was branched of over two years ago and finally is ready to be called 5.3.0.

The php.net website and many other blogs discuss the features - from often loved closures, to well discussed namespaces to the sometimes hated goto - so I think I don't have to this here but instead can focus on that what really matters:

• Thanks to all the developers - Without them no new features would be there.
• Thanks to the documentation team - Without them one would have to decipher the NEWS file and guess what exactly is meant.
• Thanks to all participants during the Testfest! - During the Testfest we received many good tests for our regression test suite. Many of these tests represent what people do, not what developers think they should do which is important to …

As others wrote, or as you can read on php.net or in my twitter feed we've released the second, long awaited, release candidate of PHP 5.3.0.

5.3 is  rather big release including support for namespaces, closures, phar archives, internatioalization support via the new intl extension, improved SQLite support, mysqlnd as backend for the MySQL exensions, impressive performance improvements, ... and tons of other bigger and minor things.

Even though this server is running 5.3 already it's not suggested to be used in production evironments, yet but I'd really like to encourage everybody to test it and give feedback! I'm also interested in positive feedback, not …

End October - time for the traditional meeting of the German and International "PHP family" - end of October? - Yes, the International PHP Conference is a bit earlier this year. Additonally the organizers moved the conference away from the industrial area of Mörfelden to the center of Mainz which sounds quite promising. Although I'll spend only around 24hrs at Mainz I'm looking really forward to the conference next week.

On Thursday morning I'll give a presentation about PHP 5.3, which will be quite interesting as one of the biggest features, namespaces, is still undergoing heavy discussions and the final syntax probably won't be clear when presenting - fortunately PHP 5.3 is much more than namespaces!

Sun will also be present at the …