Interested in Abstract Extension API and Dependency Interface

Hi, I'm Varuna Jayasiri, a second year undergraduate student at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. I read the description about the proposed idea in the GSOC 2009 idea list. Although I have experience with C/C++ and PHP, I haven't worked on (developed) extensions for PHP. So can you please help me find soe web resources (I went through source code of two extensions :) ) where I can find more information, regarding PHP extensions and present problems, so that I can prepare a better application and make sure that I can complete the project before I apply :). Also, in order to deal with the problem of load order, is it fine to have two rounds of extension initialisation: 1. First to collect the API structures and dependancies of all extensions and 2. Then to initialise only the extensions where all (required)dependancies are available. Thank you Varuna