text: Let's put it this way: MVC frameworks with namespaces are going to change a lot. The architecture can be made much cleaner and class names won't have to be so long (Zend_Db_Adapter_Db2_Exception), for instance.
  The design part of coding is __VERY__ important, and this changes are specially for that. See PHAR extension, which will be enabled now, which allows for easier distribution of software. And closures, which simply have so many uses in design and save you from clustering your code with too many function names. Sure, it doesn't change the language, and it doesn't really break apps that were written in PHP 5.2, but if you're going to design an application, thinking about this options is very useful. Too bad we don't get Traits yet =( Horizontal re-use is very nice. > Robert Cummings wrote: > > > Per Jessen wrote: > >> Manuel Aude wrote: > >> > >>> I'm giving a PHP course next semester (3 hours all saturdays for 22 > >>> weeks) and I just realized that PHP 5.3 is coming very soon (2 days > >>> now!). So, my plans of teaching PHP 5.2 are starting to change, and > >>> I think it's a good idea to teach them 5.3 already. > >> > >> Does it _really_ matter which one? I can't imagine there are that > >> many revolutionary changes in a dot-release. > > > > Given the naming of PHP versions of PHP-x.y.z, I would agree that not > > much changes between versions at the .z level. But at the .y level > > there are usually significant changes. > > > > Coming to a PHP 5.3 near you are the following notable features: > > > > - namespaces > > - closures > > - late static binding > > - garbage collector to handle cyclic references > > - PHAR > > - goto > > I hadn't actually seen/studied the list, but apart from the goto, I > don't consider any of those revolutionary :-) > > > /Per >