Derick Rethans has contributed in a number of ways to the PHP project, including the Xdebug debugging tool, the mcrypt, date and input-filter extensions, bug fixes, additions and leading the QA team. He’s a frequent lecturer at conferences, the author of php|architect’s Guide to Date and Time Programming, and the co-author of PHP 5 Power Programming.

Derick works as an independent contractor doing various PHP related jobs while focussing on internals and extensions. In his spare time he likes to travel, hike, ski and practise photography.

PHP Extensions, Why & What

So you’ve heard that PHP supports extensions. But what are they exactly, what can you do with them, and what *can’t* you do with them? And mostly, why would you or would you not want to spend time writing them?

This session will introduce you into what PHP extensions are, and what they can do for you. It will cover cases of when it makes sense to write extensions and which things you need to think of when deciding whether you want to put the effort into writing an extension.

The talk then proceeds with a small introduction to the request cycle and PHP’s memory management. It mentions which parts of PHP you could override and into which parts you can hook. It will also cover things that you cannot do with extensions.

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