PHP 5.0.0 Released!

[13-Jul-2004] The PHP team is proud to announce the final release of PHP 5!

Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:

* The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features.
* XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now focused around the excellent libxml2 library (http://www.xmlsoft.org/).
* A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and vice-versa.
* A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
* A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in addition to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of MySQL's new features, such as prepared statements.
* SQLite has been bundled with PHP. For more information on SQLite, please visit their website.
* Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access low-level socket operations on streams.
* And lots more...

For changes since Release Candidate 3, please consult the ChangeLog: http://www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php#5.0.0

Thanks, taking a look at it.

so for those of us that aren't l337 enough to know the usefulness of soap, xml, etc, how would those extras improve our lives-in-php?