I mean this to be a discussion point, if that will work rather than a tutorial, though i can answer questions when necessary.
There is a project i have been working on for close to a year now, but had to pause for a long while 'cos i needed to build a
custom php extension for it to work, and i found that more difficult that i expected considering that i know the required languages.

The most important thing is that, php is made with C language (not c++ or vc++) and it is open source, and crossplatform, which means
that if you know the c language, even if you cannot write a single line of php, you can create an extension. Surprisingly, there seems to
be a lot of information and bugs to face before being able to create one, if you have ever created one before, you will know.

Though, i had to pause several times in the process, i was finally able to compile one that works using microsoft visual c++ 6.0 and also
microsoft visual c++ 2008, i am going to try codeblocks next (my favorite c/c++ compiler).