Over the past few years there have been numerous efforts to get Java and PHP to play nice with each other. Some of them have worked well, others…not so much. Now Oracle and Zend are teaming up to help PHP developers reach into the heart of Java. Click on in, I’ve got links…but no cookies.

Rob James has a new post looking at configuring Apache to run Tomcat and PHP together so you can have both Java and PHP apps running through the same Apache frontend.

If one were to survey the extensions available in PHP one might come to the conclusion that we actually lived in a paperless society. However, we all know that isn’t true. So why does PHP not have good printer support? One option that explains why this might be the case is simply that printing documents is contrary to what PHP does well; handle short requests as quickly as possible. Printing is not conducive to this.

But what if you still need to have printing support in your PHP application? With Zend Server, Zend’s integrated PHP application stack, the answer might be not what you were expecting. Use the PHP Java Bridge, available in both the community and commercial editions of Zend Server.

If you like mixing your languages together, you’re going to love this one: Federico Cargnelutti has posted an article about running your PHP programs under Quercus, a “100% Java implementation of PHP”, and the Jetty Web server. His article includes notes on installing and configuring the components, running PHP scripts, and importing and using Java classes in PHP.

Our special guest today is Kevin Schroder. Kevin is a technical consultant for Zend Technologies’ Professional Services Group. He has wide range of experience from large scale system administration to software development in multiple languages. Based out of Dallas, TX, he travels throughout the country for Zend providing consulting, programming and architecture services centered on PHP.

p. Today Kevin is going to talk to us about using the PHP-Java bridge.

p. dev2dev.bea.com has posted an interesting tutorial on using PHP and Java bridges with WebLogic Server. Click through and I’ll share with you what I know.

p. Joe McCabe posted an interesting article over on developers.sun.com about the various ways to get PHP up and running on “Sun Java System Web Server”. Click on inside and I’ll give you the details.

p. PHP is a powerful programming language but it is also a specific programming language. It, specifically, builds web-enabled platforms for information transmission. But what about situations where deeper integration into the enterprise is required? Or situations where you need resource caching or persistence so-as to not roundhouse kick your backend servers into oblivion, ala Chuck Norris. The PHP Java Bridge gives you a method of extending PHP’s functionality without having to build a C-based PHP extension to handle your need.

p. Since I’ve been covering Zend Platform 3.0, and it’s support for BIRT, it reminded me, my buddy Heather Fox over at Prentice Hall just sent me 2 books from Addison-Wesley Professional on BIRT. Come on in, let’s take a look at them.

p. The jMaki project, which looks like it started life as a JSP tag project, announced today that they now supports PHP as well as Java. Click on inside, I’ll dig up the details.