I'm really new to Facebook application development, and I'm quite confused about application permissions and why the php sdk is so limiting and has so few precoded functions.

First off, how do I check if a user has set proper permissions for my application, and if not, display that standard dialog immediately instead of using FBML and making them click the link?

Secondly, how do I publish to a user's stream with the php apis?

Finally, are there any good tutorial sites for making a php based canvas application that use the latest versions of all the sdks?

Thank you for your help! I really don't see why so much of this is Javascript, it would really make much more sense to me to have things like: if(!$facebook->appHasPerm('publish_stream'){$facebook->showPermDialog('publish_stream');}

I'd feel like I have much more control over the application if it worked like that.