Here
A walk in the garden part 1.
PHP 6 on the radar.
are two thread that give you an idea of what PHP id today and what it will be tomorrow. As far as I know name spaces will be introduced in PHP 6. A very important element IMO.
In addition I think the problem with object return value will be solved in php 6.
Example:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9...t-return-value