PHP to RPG - "tight" integration

I just got done reading this article on iSeries News :
http://tinyurl.com/jysgd
 
One particular quote that caught my eye was "But beyond the reengineering,
the most challenging task was building tight integration with RPG, Pinette
says."
 
So now I am REALLY curious because if they did things right it could be the
one better than what the IBM PCML Java team considers tight integration to
RPG.  Does anyone know how they are integrating?  Right now I don't have
access to a V5R4 machine otherwise I would check it out for myself.  The
user manual doesn't give me much to go on. Below is the example from the
Zend_Core_i5OS_User_Guide.pdf.
 
$prog = i5_program_open("DEMOPGM");.
if(i5_program_call($prog, array(1,2,"abc"))) {.
  $result = each_fetch_assoc($prog);.
  print "result is $result['retval']<br>";.
} else {.
  print "Program call failed.<br>";.
}.
 
On another related note I checked up on the Zend PHP site
(http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core/zend_for_i5_os)
<http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core/zend_for_i5_os) and>  and found this
tidbit: "Easily "webify" existing i5/OS applications" - so are they
intercepting the 5250 data stream and putting it out to the browser?  Is
this similar to what they are doing with HATS or WebFacing?
 
 
Another interesting piece of information is that the Zend Studio IDE is
being promoted as the development environment (or maybe a better way to say
it - eclipse is NOT being used for the PHP i5 development, though you could
use a variety of eclipse PHP plugins).
 
 <http://tinyurl.com/r58cp>  
One last piece of interesting information.  This page:
<http://tinyurl.com/r58cp> http://tinyurl.com/r58cp shows pricing for
support and the Zend Studio IDE.  Note that support obviously costs money,
but the IDE does not!  This is interesting because the general public that
purchases Zend Studio has to pay $99 per seat.  Hopefully this is true
because that will allow RPG'ers to "play around" with PHP, at no charge, to
get comfortable with it before they fight the battle of getting it accepted
into their shops.  Am I on the right page?  
 
Comments anyone?
 
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com