Beta-testing PHP 5.3 begins in October

The company Zend Technologies has announced releasing a new beta version of PHP 5.3 in October this year. It is the popular language of server scenarios for writing web applications.
The new version has garbage collection in memory, support of names and packaging PHP-applications in the archives of the format PHAR. In addition, it has a seriously optimized performance of PHP technologies under Windows through the use of modern compilers of Microsoft, as well as modern components from other manufacturers to support XML, operations with graphics and access to the database.
The new mechanism of garbage collection in memory helps PHP 5.3 to use memory as efficiently as possible. Due to this mechanism, long working PHP-scripts are free of memory leaks.
Packing PHP-applications in the archives of the format PHAR (PHP Archive) seriously facilitates dissemination and deployment of applications.
Also PHP 5.3 will include various additional components, including a client library for integrating PHP with the MySQL DBMS. According to the developers, PHP 5.2 applications must work in the environment PHP 5.3.
Though, earlier version PHP 5.3 was planned to be released before the end of 2008, the dates were postponed to the first quarter of 2009.
Along with the final version of PHP 5.3 another open platform WSF/PHP (Web Services Framework) will be available, meant for full implementing service-oriented architecture of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) in PHP. The company WSO2, developing and supporting WSF/PHP, promises to realize full-functional opportunities for creating e-commerce applications.