Question: I am about to start developing a private TODO website (that later will be extended to Web applications). I am unsure what framework to use. I have read about GWT and PHP frameworks such as Yii. What advantages do each one have over another. 

Background
 - experience in Java 
 - got an apache web host that supports php

Doubts:

* Would developing in GWT mean that refactoring would be easier than developing in PHP (especially since you can use Eclipse)
* seems like PHP frameworks such as Yii design objects for you once you create database layout ... can this be done with GWT?

Thanks!

Answer: 
the magical function [strtotime](http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php) does all the work for you. seriously check it out for adding, manipulating and even reading human readable forms of dates. Then the [date](http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php) function is good for formatting it back into any form.
For many input formats, [`strtotime`](http://php.net/strtotime) is the way to go. However, its heuristical approach may lead to surprising results, so if you only want to parse a specific format, use [`strptime`](http://php.net/strptime).