I am currently building PHP 5 after I got fink updated properly (thanks to some advice from my Programming competition teammate and fellow Mac user, Jesse). I got the new libxml2 and all was well. Then I hit a snag on installing the GD libraries including libjpg and the like - so I bailed on the idea of actually installing GD and went on my merry way. Fortunately I had saved my ./configure command in a text file so I could save it and then source it when necessary.

- OK it is finished compiling and I installed it. This is pretty exciting I must tell you. I'll let you know if it is as good as I think it should be :)

While PHP 5 is still in Beta 2, I have decided that I can't wait any longer and I am in the process of installing it on my laptop. However, I need libxml2 in order to use some of the cool new XML features of PHP, and I apparently don't have a high enough version. I have been trying to update my libxml2 with fink, but that doesn't seem to be going well. So after work today I will just try to install it from source. This is fine, because I am installing php 5 from source as well. For those people who haven't done so, I would suggest taking a look at the new features in PHP 5 and perhaps you will be as excited as I am. The only problem will be developing software that is meant for distribution, as it will take a while before php 5 is as widespread as php 4 is now. However, for developing on one's own server, php 5 provides an excellent object oriented platform for your web applications. Yeah!