Alrighty then! The challenge: To make this entire rambling before Netscape eats up all my swap with its annoying memory leak. Can it be done? Perhaps not, but we can at least make a valiant attempt. In the event of failure, there's always Plan B: Do an obnoxious "Part 2" entry.

So, now that I'm happily muching on nice little supply of nutritious animal fat from McDonalds ("Mac Donalds is da place to rock! It is a restaurant where dey buy food to eat. It is a good place to listen to da music. People flock there from miles to get down to the rock n roll!"), food which cost me more than $5, but I got a hell of a lot more than a measly little piece of pig intestine. :) And finally, with a heavy dose of Rob the Zombie man pumping into my ears, let the tale begin....

Once upon an time, long long ago, as the sun ascended over the vast plane, subjecting the rocky faces to its overpowering illuminaton, melting patches of snow from the storm two days past, a few automobiles could be seen making their various errands on the ever-busy freeways of the metropolis. Certainly not as many as would be seen on a weekday rush hour, but the traffic ever-present nonetheless. A continues mass of drones lost in the rush of the everyday weekend routine. The traffic was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the progress of the technological marketing of a dot com economy (in which the struggle to put the intelligence back into the Internet is always ongoing). But it was a beginning.

On this fair morning, not all was ordinary in the city, for a pack of geeks five had begun to converge on the Denver Marriott Tech Center, where they would -- unbeknownst to them (actually very beknownst to them, but what the hell difference does that make?) -- encounter, converse with, and listen to rousing and informative speeches by many renound geeks with interests as quaint and obscure as theirs (namely: Linux). Oh, and they would learn (or teach) how to fold laundry the "proper" way. And get much practice at it.

[starwipe]

Can we get back into first person, normalspeak now? Good. :)

So I woke up nice and early, and was ready to go this morning. Well, almost. After my ride arrived at 0730, and we had gone a few blocks, I rememberd that I had left my badge at home. Doh! Back to the house, and quick run in, and retry. On the road. Almost. We (well, my portion of the contingent anyway, which consisted of me and one other person) had to stop by the office to pick up a few things, which ended up taking slightly longer than expected, but still plenty of time to set things up and hit the keynote.

The drive down to South Denver was quick and uneventful, and almost immediately upon entering the building, we encountered the rest of the party, who had arrived nearly an hour earlier. They were somewhat peeved that we had taken so long, but they quickly got over it (and I'm sure that had nothing to do with the fact that the person I rode with was the closest thing to a PHB in our party to attend the event. lol). Anyway...

As anticipated, it didn't very long to get the booth setup. Fortunate. We decided that the new company slogan to attract new hires should be: "eSoft. Because you too could fold laundry at tradeshows!" (And I would also add: "It's all part of our strategic collateral mission initiative to put intelligence back into the Internet.") Ah, the fun of it. :)

Doh! Was that laundry folding algorithm a proprietary company trade secret? Damn! I knew I shouldn't be talking about this stuff here. Oh damn again! Now I've leaked our top secret plans to expand and diversify the business plan into a world-wide laundry folding operation. Doh! Did it again. Aw fsck. Forget you read that. [Jedi hand wave] By the time you finish this paragraph, you will forget you read that. There is no laundry folding algorithm (readers repeat phrase in a trance-like state: "There is no laundry folding algorithm.") eSoft has no plans whatsoever to become the Microsoft of the world laundry industry. ("eSoft has no plans what.. so.. ever ... to become the... micro... laundry... industry.") Now, carry on with your zombie surfing.

Moving on...

Damn, I better pick up the pace, or I'm gonna end up missing Xena. Aw, hell with that. It's a rerun. A rerun of an episode which was one of the first in the downhill slide -- a downhill slide from which the show appears to have recently recovered. We hope. [Fans from around the world wait with nervous anticipation for the next string of new episodes, which could be the determining omen in whether the Xena phenominon goes out in a blaze of glory next year, or whether it will end with the annoying wimper of Joxer making an ass of himself on international television while Gabrielle, the newly dumb blond, sucks his tiny little cock... and likes it.]

Ok, that was profane, and I'm sorry. But I had to say it. The words just popped into my brain and I typed them. I'm innocent, I swear! :) I was... inspired by a divine force. Ok, now I'm being blasphemous, on top of profane. Alright. Now I'm serverly offtopic. The worst sin of them all. Back to the tradeshow. :)

We got the booth all ready to go just in time for the keynote. I had been slightly concerned that being the person with the least seniority, I would end up doing booth duty while all the "cool" stuff happened. Nothing could have been further from the truth. :) One member of the group volunteered to hold down the fort while the rest of us went to see Jon "Maddog" Hall give his speech in the main auditorium.

He talked a lot about the growth of Linux over the years, and how -- way back in 94 -- he had first lobbied his company pay air fare so that this unknown person known only as Linus could come to America and give a talk about some obscure toy OS that was being developed.

Also having traveled to many organizations over the years, he's asked them whether they ever used Linux. The representatives from place after place had given the same answer: "No Linux here." Only later would it be discovered that totally unbeknownst to the bean counters, Linux was being actively used in a variety of ways all over the place, much to the astonishment of the less informed spokespeople.

One anecdote I found particularly amusing was the way one tech support group for a university in Brazil managed to handle an annoying problem. On a regular basis, they would get calls from frustrated users around the town whose Windows boxes had crashed. Usually, all it took was for someone to drive out, correct whatever minor corruption had occured (I wasn't precisely clear on what was wrong besides the usual Windows memory leak, but it must have screwed up something on the hard drive) and reboot the machine. Unfortunately, the commute for the tech person could often take hours in a city of that size. They came up with an ingenious solution (and no, it's not the obvious one that we're all thinking of, but it's related):

They gave all the people Linux floppies. Whenever someone would call in with a problem, they'd tell the user to insert the floppy and reboot the machine. With a stable system running, the techs could then FTP in a Windows disk image, copy it to the Windows partition, remove the floppy, reboot again, and presto! All better now. (The audience reaction was strange combination of laughter and groans on that.)

Jon "Maddog" went on to talk about beowulf clusters, wearable computing, the future of Linux, world domination, things every user could do to help achieve that goal, and other good warm fuzzy stuff. An inspiring, informative, and most enjoyable talk with a lot of laughs interspersed (most of the laughs -- the best ones ones, at least -- were at the expense of a certain Redmond-based company which shall go unnamed).

After the keynote, at which time I was feeling more inspired about this mighty OS than I've felt for quite some time (I've been a Linux lover since early 97, but after a while, I guess one just starts to take such awesome things for granted), the four returned to the booth to relieve the one who had remained behind.

[Brain getting groggy... "Computer. Increase Threat Level 5 volume." Aw damn. I'll just have to think faster (I'd say "type faster", but my fingers are almost never the bottleneck in getting these long ramblings written. My brain just need a faster processor, I guess.)]

Many a curious visitor wandered by the eSoft booth. In all but a few cases, I would leave the answering of questions to someone who had been with the company longer (read: anyone other than myself), hence more qualified to answer. Or at least that was my theoretical excuse. One of the perks of being a lowly peon and a newbie, I guess. :)

After a few minutes of table duty, I got my turn to wander around, look at the other cool booths, collect toys, and whatever other fun might happen. I checked out some of the booths in our isle, got a funky little green propeller hat from one, signed up for a contest (well aware that the real motive was to gather info for spamming, but I frankly was beyond caring, cause I wouldn't really mind a little snail mail spam from these particular companies anyway, and the email address I gave out is one I keep primarily for just such occassions.

I really wanted to get to the lwn booth I had seen on the way in, mostly because I thought it would just be cool to possibly see some of the people behind the web site I've gone to for so long to get news and level headed commentary about all aspects of what's happening in the Linux community.

After being distracted for a few minutes by the mighty display of O'Reilly and other quality books put on by a store I've never been to before but that's actually quite close to home, I wandered over to the lwn booth, and found myself somewhat dumbstruck. (If that seems silly, I'm trying to imagine what I would do if, say, andover.net had happened to drop by.) I complimented the lone attendant (who couldn't seem to think of much more to say than I could) on the web site, was offered a funky little lwn button, and moved on.

At this point, I rounded the corner, and met two familiar faces from the "home" planet. Both were going to wander around the hotel to see about the food situation. My stomach chimed in, and I decided to abort my barely-begun tour of the trading floor and join the travellers.

In the little hotel shop, we all paid some ridiculously high prices for little bits of snack food and drink. And I thought theatres were bad! My hot dog cost in excess of $5. (I didn't get any drink or extras, but a itsy bitsy bag of chips was included. How generous.) It tasted good though, and I didn't regret the purchase.

The three geeks sat around for a few minutes, consuming their precious purchases while discussing top secret plans for world domination. Plans which shall not be revealed in these pages. Or maybe nothing top secret. Maybe it was just ordinary, casual conversation; with little more meaning than a typical session in the coffee shop with Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer, but it sounds exciting, doesn't it? :)

Oh damn, I am sitting way way to long at this. The funny thing is, Netscape has barely even made a dent in my memory. Isn't that insane? The unreproducable bug. Swap hasn't even been touched yet. I guess that's lucky, cause we're not even half way done yet! Mwa ha ha ha ha! I can babble on forever, and NO ONE can stop me. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah! };>

(Did I mention that I've also been getting mentorship in a few of the more esoteric styles of emoticons, whether the "mentor" really realizes it or not? Oh, I can see already that this is going to be a real WINNER in getting me to express myself in other non-net-centric fashions. Yeah, right. lol. But I digress...)

After returning to the booth for a few minutes to regroup, the three who were officially designated -- official company business, mind you -- to attend the PHP speech my Rasmus Lerdorf, founder of the mighty scripting language, took their leave of the exhibit hall. These three were slightly early, and the room where the talk was to be given had not yet opened. So, they proceeded to find some nearby chairs, and discussed more top secret plans, developing the strategy in further detail. (Or maybe it was just other irrelevant chatter about nothing, as previously indicated. Or maybe they didn't talk at all. Or maybe it was about something else entirely! The world will never know.)

After a short while, the room opened, and people began to file in. It didn't take much time for the talk to begin. There was just enough of a lull for this writer to be chastised for not coming prepared with a pen and paper. ;-p

[/me remembers a rambling made earlier this week about stylistic choices for good web content on this site, and how potential readers should -- or should not be -- addressed. Nods to self. Moves on.]

I am just having WAY too much fun with this one. Moves on. Right.

The talk by Ramsus was very good. Very good. At least, I think it might have been. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of it, so I guess we'll just have to skip that part.

Approximately an hour later, back on the exhibit floor. (Oh yeah, the speech by Scott Draeker of Loki Games that many were looking forward to was cancelled due to illness, so nobody went to that one.) Three -- two of whom had been weathering booth duty for the past hour -- went to lunch. The other two took their hour-long turn at the chat with curious folks about our company routine.

That hour went surprisingly fast on my internal chronometer. Maybe it was all the cool stuff that was going on around the place, or maybe it was all the wacky characters who dropped by, maybe it was the pleasant conversations with the other booth attendant/co-worker during lulls, or maybe it was the fact that I wasn't strictly in the booth for the entire time. ;) Whatever it was, even the times that were supposably the most boring seemed fun filled and action packed.

At one point, a pair of honest-to-goodness, bona fide Linux Chix (of the female variety) even dropped by. (Alright, stop [g]awking.) They had come to the eSoft booth specifically searching for somebody who was out eating lunch at the time, and I informed them of when the person they were looking for was expected to return. They said a pleasant thank you, and were on their way. (And yes, a certain one of my New Year's resolutions -- which has been elaborated about way, way too often on this web site recently -- did briefly pop into my mind, which I pondered for an entire 0.68 seconds before spartan professionalism once again took hold.)

Yes, I did use a web search to come up with that number. Sue me.

After the first group of lunch go-ers returned, the two who had been on booth duty took their leave. We ate right down the street at Garcias. Well, their prices might be slightly high, but I can't imagine anyone accusing this restaurant of skimping on portions. Yum. I wasn't even able to finish half of my taco salad, delicious as it was. That was a good restaurant.

On the way back in, me and my copatriot both agreed that we wanted to make purchases from Softpro, since they had a very handy selection of quality reading materials, and everything was at a 20% markdown from the list price for the show. Choices, choices.

I knew I wanted the flamingo book. I wouldn't have said so a month ago, but my interest in that area has greatly increased after getting up close and personal with code that makes use of a lot of the... let's say, "dynamics"... of such things. I also looked around (without success) for a copy of the lex and yacc book. My interest in that topic has historically been of the "maybe someday" nature, but after hearing Ramsus talk about it, I decided to bump that one up on the priority list for further investigation. Oh, wait a minute. I don't remember that. Confabulation. Yeah, that explains it. :)

Ok, I'm being horrible, and I know it. I'll stop. I promise. Soon. :)

After looking around some more, I decided I also wanted one of their Gimp books. The question was: which one? I finally decided on "Grokking the Gimp"; from my brief glance over it, the tutorials appeared to be intelligent, the full color illustrations very cool, and it's based on the upcoming version 1.2. :) Very excellent. I also snatched a couple O'Reilly pocket references on XML and Javascript, went to the cash register, and proceeded to dig out the happy bank account depletion card.

Back to the booth to hang out with the rest of the family. Woohoo.

After a few minutes of that, it didn't appear that anyone else was wanting to go anywhere with any terrible urgency, and I wanted to finish my rounds of the rest of the area while all was still alive and active. No one objected, so I went on my merry way.

Lots of cool exhibits. Lots. Okay, maybe there weren't that many, but the signal to noise ratio was so high that it felt like I was just immersed in coolness. (A couple years ago, some friends and I went to a so-called "computer show" in Denver where the admission price was $5 each. Afterwards, we all agreed it generally a waste of time and money. Most of the exhibits there had consisted of lathargic flunkies from companies which appeared to be trying to pander to an audience with the IQ of an AOL user. Ok, in fairness, there were a couple of mildly interesting things there, but certainly nothing worth paying 5 bucks to see.)

Highlights: Well, there was a lot that was excellent, and I probably won't get to everything, so rather than try to go chronologically, I'll start with what I considered to be the coolest or most memorable places, and work my way down.

Well, not too surprisingly, in general, I found the volunteer-run or non-profit booths to be the most satisfying in terms of just being comfortable to hang around. Early in my rounds (ok, maybe it is partially chronological), I happened upon the Open Source Education Foundation's booth.

I knew I had seen that title before, probably on a Slashdot headline somewhere, but I couldn't quite recall exactly what it was. One of them asked me if I had any questions about their organization, and I said I assumed by their title that they might have something to do with training people in the use open source software?

Nope. Not exactly. Their purpose is to assist K-12 schools in the installation and use of open source software. The one in the know proceeded to explain how they go into the schools, set systems up, help in teaching kids and teachers in how to operate computers, and get them going on open source software.

Very cool. They're non-profit. Doing this because it's something they believe in. Work with both public and private schools. I was told stories of kindergardeners learning to use computers with open source software (which these people help develop themselves, if necessary) on Linux-based platforms. Second graders getting into the Gimp. Kids learning to program on a system that won't try to tie them into some sleezy corporate scheme to get them hooked and later milk them for all they're worth once they reach adulthood.

Ok, maybe I'm just a big mushball, but I found their attitude and idealism hit me on several fronts: First, some of my fondest memories of grade school are of times spent learning about the computer. This brought it back. Second, it also brought back more mushy memories of a previous job I had for a number of years. Three year olds who would take every chance they got to get on that ancient Tandy and just play on it. Kids after my own heart. Third: I love open source/free software. I love the ideals. I love the quality. I love the way programmers can just throw a bunch of source code out on the net, others see and improve it, and everyone benefits. It is the closest thing this world has to a utopia. RMS is right. But I'm digressing.

Anyway, I liked that bunch. And now, looking at their leaflet, I like it too. Simple, direct to the point. Title at the top. Series of memorable quotes in the middle. Url at the bottom. Nice.

Moving on...

Alright, the other place I just had fun at was the CLUE booth. When I wandered up next to it, the people behind the table were engaged in what sounded like a fascinating discussion about something very geeky (I didn't overhear it quite long enough to discern exactly what the topic was). They were almost so involved that they didn't notice me at first. Once they did, they were all very friendly, and told me to interrupt if I had any questions.

I asked exactly what they were. Obviously something resembling a LUG, but their title didn't have the standard letters L U G as a subset of their name. Well, actually they are a LUG, but they've chosen a slightly different acronym to describe themselves. Their members are from all around the Denver area.

I complimented one guy on his shirt, and asked if they could sell me any like it. :) Well, no, they weren't selling anything, but he immediately typed a familiar url into a handy web browser, and quickly navigated to the proper area. Meanwhile, the rest of them began launching into a discussion about the evils of DVD region coding, its various technical aspects, and what could be done to circumvent it.

Yes, this group appeared to have as much energy and spirit as a typical festing crowd does on any given high caffeine night.

I told them I had been to a few BLUG meetings over the years, and that I liked their group, but making it down to south Denver for a meeting might be difficult. I was (and am) very tempted to try to kludge a way though. I said I was from Louisville. One (the same dude with the shirt) immediately said he lived in the same area, and he finds the trip worthwhile, cause it's just more fun than BLUG. (Based on my brief interaction with this bunch, contrasted with the pleasant but less enthusiastic atmosphere at BLUG meetings I've attended, I found that very easy to believe.)

Now I realize I should have asked if he would have been willing to give me a lift. Hindsight always 20/20.

Holy fuck! Am I going on forever! At this rate, this is going to beat the record for longest rambling in history. Yeow. Well, lots to talk about, and I ain't stoppin until I'm done, baby. The most surprising thing is that Netscape is still behaving itself remarkably well. I'll just be damned! Gonna be sleepin in tomorrow morning for sure. On with the fun.

Well, let's see, what else? Well, the next most memorable was probably my visit to Linux Mall, but I wanna save that for last.

Well, the Loki booth was cool. When I went by it, there didn't actually appear to be anyone from the company present, but they had a nice row of kickass monitors running some sweet looking games. All on Linux. :) Quake III looked simply awesome.

Oh, the Compaq booth! I got at tip that they might be weasled out of "LINUX: Live Free or Die" license plates. It turned out that persuading them wasn't quite as easy as saying, "Can I have one? Please?" They said they only exchange them for information.

I asked what kind of information they wanted. They asked me about the company I was from, and I proceeded to tell them who we are, what we do, and what we sell to the best of my ability. They then talked a little about their Alpha, which had an open case on display, and proceeded to inform me of its advantages over the Pentium. I ask how they believe it stacks up against the Athlon, and they admitted that the Athlon is better for some things, but it all depends on what you're trying to do. We kind of chatted for a few minutes about stuff, and I walked away with a plate. More fun for the whole family. :)

Alright, what else...? I did walk by the Cobalt area. Briefly. I wasn't certain whether they had looked closely enough at my badge to tell what company I was from. Whether they did or didn't, I was basically ignored as I walked by. Not that I really made any attempt to get the attention of anyone there. Just walked by, and looked. Not quite as brave as some from our group. But then again, I kind of doubt the "dumb guy" routine would go over quite as well as the "dumb girl" routine. [cue No Doubt: Tragic Kindom. Track 3... Now.]

I also passed the VA Linux booth. Actually, that one was underwhelming, given all the net hype they've gotten. The lone attendant appeared rather beat, and uninterested in saying much. They did have a really impressive monitor on display though. But then, a lot of booths at this thing had impressive monitors.

The Atipa guys were cool. One of them had visited our booth earlier, and I returned the courtesy on my way through.

Toward the end of my circut, I stopped at the TriSys booth, mostly curious about their stuff, which in some ways resembles eSoft's own gig. The guy pleasantly demoed the netwinder's web interface software to me, to which I played the dumb guy. That tiny, cute little box (much smaller than what you'd think by looking at pictures on the web) was very cool. I soaked in the demo, asked a couple of questions, shook his hand, and was on my way. (I secretly hoped that we don't consider them a competitor, cause they were really nice. I later asked coworkers about it, and they said something along the lines of "maybe a little, but not really.")

My last stop was at the LinuxMall, where I probably bought more than I should have, or really needed to. But really, isn't the entire purpose of these things (at least for their kind) to separate consumers from their cash? :)

Since their booth was directly across from ours, I had had a lot of opportunity earlier to stare at the stuff on the shelves, and scope out ideas for what to buy (read: have brain continuously bombarded, enticed, and teased by the penguin paraphernalia across the isle). Alright, I knew there were things I wanted to buy when I arrived, but I actually ended up buying more than initially planned. Not a huge amount more, but more. It's just fun, ok?

It also didn't help that one of the people on the other side of the table who was helping me was an incredibly (no exaggeration. really.) incredibly attractive member of the opposite gender. I mean, I know that companies who use smut-esque marketing to sell stuff are the scum of the earth. And honestly, I really cannot (nor am I trying to) accuse LinuxMall of that, cause it's not like she was wearing a bikini or anything. Normal clothes. Acted totally professional. She was just really, really good looking, and knew how to do the hard sell. (And no, that phrase is not meant to have any kind of double meaning, but now that it's there, I can see it being taken that way. *sigh*)

When I asked about getting a shirt, she was like, "Oh yeah! We've got shirts. How many you want? Four? Five?" Holding them up. The pleading, glimmering, look in the eyes. And I had the strong feeling that somebody was trying to lead me around by the dumbstick (meaning fully intended). The scary thing was, I briefly considered saying "three". Yeah, for about 0.68 seconds. I said "ONE shirt", got my mug, my little stuffed penguins, my penguin playing cards (yeah, she did the hard sell on those too, but I was half sold on them when I first saw them, even before the pitch began), and handed over my happy bank account depletion card.

A full bag in hand, I walked the whole ten meters (or something like that) back to the eSoft booth, where I proceeded to engage in a nice, lengthy chat about this and that with the other two inhabitants. (The rest of the group had gone to an embedded systems presentation they wanted to see.)

Everything was very much winding down at around 1700, and even though we were theoretically going to stay until 1800, the one whose hair is slightly pointier than the rest became convinced that it was time to leave when every other booth in our isle save one had packed up and left, so we did the same.

We were out in short order, and the ride home was laid back and enjoyable. Smashing Pumpkins, bootlegs, mp3s, usenet, Tori Amos. Fun post-tradeshow conversation for the whole family.

Now, here's an oddity to ponder: Before long, the time spent writing this entry wil rival that of the time spent at the convention itself. If we could make a few false suppositions from that. Namely, that every real time moment of the day has been documented here, why not get a wearable computer, like Jon Maddog was talking about, and just use it to continually post rambling updates? Moment to moment content generation. Now THAT is the future. Maybe in Bitscape's Lounge Version 5.0. :)

But I just remembered: I almost forgot to remember all the stuff I had forgotten! But now I know, so I remember. Since I remember, I can now write about it. Woohoo! Gotta love those miraculous recoveries! This thing ain't over yet!

Time: circa 1200. Place: Some lecture hall on the base floor of the Denver Marriott Tech Center. Three figures enter the room, proceed to sit in the second row, and wait with baited breath for the mighty Ramsus to make his appearance. (Well, actually, he was standing up in front from the beginning, but we won't let facts get in the way of a good memory recovery.)

Once he opened his mouth, and exercised the vocal chords within, the shadow was cast into darkness, and all present were enlightened with great knowledge.

He talked about the history of PHP, how he couldn't really be considered the "author" of the whole thing, cause lots of other people had also contributed to the project. Same story as Linux really. A community effort.

The first seedlings of what would become known as PHP was simply some hacked up perl CGI code which would parse an html file with simple commands embedded inline. He wanted to post his resume with the current or relatively recent date printed on it, so prospective employers would go "Wow! See the date on that html file? He just put that up yesterday." He also wanted a way to easily track who was viewing his site when and from where.

Gradually, the simple instructions grew more complex, and Rasmus, knowing virtually nothing about language design, wrote the parser as a state machine (which brought to my mind an ancient and obscure piece of C++ code I once wrote, known only by a few as POVFPG).

When people who actually knew something about how programming languages and compilers should work saw his code, their dismay was evident. These individuals helped him to bring a more sane parser to PHP, and he learned of the wonders of yacc.

With version 3, the language became robust enough that more people were using it on a wide scale. According to netcraft, php is the most-used apache module on the net, followed by (bleah!) frontpage extensions, with mod_perl and something else trailing in the distance.

Rasmus delved into many useful features of the language, complete with on-screen source code examples, and a demonstration of results of the given code. He first coverd the basics, on how php's preferred method for demarkation uses the <?php code ?> to embed itself within html. A variation on the standard sgml tag for inline scripting, which is <? code ?> The reason php puts the "php" after the question mark is for compatibility with xml. Php is also cabable of taking the <% code %> syntax, asp style. That's mostly for people who need compatibility with html editors that only recognize the asp-style sentax. Finally, one can also do <script language="PHP"> code </script> style coding, if one so wishes.

PHP's inline scripting is constructed in such a way that the script maintains its context even when one breaks out into plain html. Hence, a statement such as:

<?php if ($somevar == 1) { ?>

<p>Here's a block of html that executes if the variable is 1.</p>

<?php } else { ?>

<p>Here's what we see if somevar is not 1.</p>

<?php } ?>

Hence, the above would output conditional blocks of html as necessary. Woohoo! (And I hope I didn't screw up any of those stupid little escaped entity character thingees.)

PHP also has a very useful function called readfile that I didn't know about, but I would have found very useful a couple days ago, and I'm sure I will in the future. It can be used to take the contents of an entire disk file and dump it to the browser with one command. Very useful.

Rasmus also talked about PHP's regular expression handling. Many people have tried to convince him to make it support perl regular expressions within the code, without having to make calls to preg_match, preg_replace, explode, or the other external functions which php uses to allow perl regexes to be used. He said he believes doing such a thing would clutter up the language, make it too close to resembling "line noise", and went on with a few cracks which I'm sure would have Tom Christiansen seething and foaming at the mouth by now. Personally, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be offended. Given that I was in a good mood, I chose the former, with reservation of course.

Oh let's see... PHP supports a wide variety of databases. The most notable difference between versions 3 and 4 being that PHP 4 supports a standard, DBI-like interface to all SQL databases. He did this mainly because lots of people wanted it. Rasmus believes that if you're migrating, changing the names of a few function calls in your scripts are the least of your worries. It's the various differences and incompatibilities to how the databases are done with triggers, internally defined functions, etc etc etc that make the real work. Based on what I've done with Mysql and Postgres, I would have to agree, although it never hurts to have a standard calling mechanism.

La dee da. WAY to late. So much for regular sleeping hours.

Oh yes, migrating from NT. The mighty guru also explained why he believes that it's key for PHP to support NT. How doing such a thing is not bowing to the evil empire in any way, but enabling people to realistically migrate to a more stable platform as they need it. He used the example of someone who has all their stuff running on NT, IIS, ASP, MSSQL, and all the other shit no sane person would set up in the first place, but many of whom are apparently stuck with. If they can start by installing PHP on NT, they get to start migrating to a more stable platform one step at a time. Port the ASP's, leave everything else. Then, when you're comfortable with that, take out IIS, put apache on NT, and you've got a more stable web server, but you still have the other services offered. Then, you get a Linux server, put apache on it with php, and run all your scripts from there and connect remotely to the NT database with ODBC. At that point, you're on good ground with the web server front. After that, migrating the database is the only thing left. Not as big of a deal. The road from bondage to freedom.

Again, I had to agree with the man. Given that while I was there, ucollege.edu had an almost identical situation to the one he described. Except in their case, it was perl that was used. And it was the opposite. The database was migrated first. I don't know if or how the rest of the transition took place. I left first.

Ah yes, PHP 4 also has session support. Good stuff.

I'm way, way too tired. There was some shit about support for Java classes. Useful for Java people, I guess. Rasmus talked about how he had tried to write some stuff in java, but found it so impossibly slow, even after attempts at optimising, that the thing was practically useless compared to a php script which did the same thing an order of magnitude faster. The corporate people who he had been consulting with replied, "Aw, but that's just a toy language. Couldn't be reliable for the enterprise strategy solution blah blah blah.." In essence: FUD. Meanwhile, in reality, Java sucks balls left and right when you actually try to do anything with it. He admits that he loves the language of java, loves the idea, but he just wishes it would work. Again, total agreement from me. Again, personal experience. (Granted, my experience was limited and short, but I'd just as soon keep it that way until things improve significantly.)

Oh, there was a bunch of other nice stuff that he talked about, but I don't remember all of it, and I'm too tired to try.

A very good talk though. Very useful. Very informative. A good mix of history, stories, and concice, to-the-point code examples. The two other people I went with agreed that they had learned things about the language they hadn't known before, and I know I most certainly did. Most excellent indeed.

Alrighty then. Now that I've spent more time writing about the damn thing than I did actually attending it, I'd like to thank eSoft for paying for the pass. And I'd again like to thank x13 for the web space. And.... And ... And...

I shall now clear the assortment of wonderful items off my bed, and plop on it before my body spontaniously collapses in this chair. God, I am insane. Never more. Never more.