PHP 6, currently under active development, will include full support for Unicode strings, in effect allowing the use of non-ASCII characters in PHP scripts, alphabetical sorting across different alphabets, and more. This will be useful to web developers worldwide -- Unicode maps the characters of all human languages, and the list of new additions (and removals) is likely to ensure the continued wide usage of this programming language.

The basic outline of the planned improvements has been common knowledge for years, but as the sixth version of PHP approaches completion, a more complete picture emerges. A new article at IBM Developer Works describes the most important changes in the new major version. Some of those will be implemented earlier, in the upcoming PHP 5.3, with full Unicode support being one of the killer features in v6, which the development team hopes will attract even more people to the PHP community. Other highlights include Web 2.0 related additions and the complete removal of the register-globals setting, which is considered insecure when enabled.

PHP is a recursive initialism, meaning the abbreviation contains itself, and stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor." The programming language was designed specifically for the web, and integrates nicely with HTML. It is used across tens of millions of domains, being offered as a basic option by the vast majority of web hosting companies. It is often the choice of starting web developers, and that fact has sometimes earned it the derision of long-time IT professionals. Still, it is used on some of the most popular websites, and PHP-based frameworks and CMSs are among the best web development tools available today.

When PHP 6 is officially released, it will not replace the older versions, or even get wide adoption, overnight. The current situation is a good indicator what will happen: now some web hosts continue to offer PHP 4 as a hosting option, even though it is no longer being actively developed, and many high profile projects ceased to support the old version as of February, 2008, as part of the GoPHP5 initiative. PHP 6 will break many scripts used today, and with virtualization it is much easier, and cheaper, to dedicate a virtual machine to run your legacy code on an old platform, rather than rewrite it from scratch.