Be careful! Starting in PHP 5.3.7 the behavior of is_a() has changed slightly: when calling is_a() with a first argument that is not an object, __autoload() is triggered!In practice, this means that calling is_a('23', 'User'); will trigger __autoload() on "23". Previously, the above statement simply returned 'false'.More info can be found here:Whether this change is considered a bug and whether it will be reverted or kept in future versions is yet to be determined, but nevertheless it is how it is, for now...