Laura Thomson’s random thoughts and rants about tech and FOSS
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category.
Long time no post. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work.
On that note, if anybody is aware of an implementation of the Compositor (not Composite) pattern in PHP, let me know. Today is the first time I ever wished for Java in my PHP career. Don’t worry, it didn’t last long. ;) I am making a widgetized web app and need a way to automate widget layout. Sometimes you can out-clever yourself.
Next week I will be speaking at the AUUG Conference in Sydney. (AUUG is the Australian UNIX and Open Systems Users Group.) I have a tutorial with Luke on Monday morning on PHP and MySQL, and a talk on Friday afternoon on PHP Security. Luke also has a talk on Friday on
Building a Simple PHP/MySQL Geographical Information System, which is quite fun.
Should be fun, I haven’t been to one of these before, but if you’re in Sydney, come along and say hello.
Well, now I can reveal why I haven’t been blogging (or doing much else for that matter) since I started my new job.
I’ve been working on Ning, (previously gossiped about as Marc Andreesen’s new startup 24 Hour Laundry). It is amazingly cool. Ning is a free online service - as they like to call it, a playground for building social apps. You can make an app in about 5 seconds by cloning an existing app if you don’t want to or can’t code. Or clone one and hack on it. Or write your own from scratch.
Go and play, Ning rocks.
I have a new job. I am working for George Schlossnagle at OmniTI. I am pretty excited about it 
(I will be finishing up my teaching of "Web Servers and Web Technology" this semester in parallel, and yes, I will be finishing my PhD, before anybody asks.)
Incidentally, to go with my shiny new job I am in the market for a shiny new laptop, probably a Panasonic Y4. All feedback appreciated.
Later today Zend has a WebCast about the state of the PHP Job Market. From their website:
"The PHP job market is booming. But recruiters and hiring agents often have a difficult time assessing potential
PHP developers. Meanwhile, PHP developers often have difficulty conveying their skills and expertise in their
field.
Join our panel of industry experts, and hiring decision-makers, to find out what skills are coveted, how to
find people with those skills, and how to advance your PHP career."
It is on at 9am PDT on Wednesday 24th August which I believe is 2am Thursday Melbourne time, for those locals that are interested.
I keep getting questions about where to read more about REST web services. There is some great material at http://www.xfront.com/, along with some other XML related tutorials. In particular, an excellent overview can be found here [PPT]. (Thanks to Roger Costello for this goldmine of information.)
I’ve been too busy with work to blog much, so we pause for this humorous interlude…this is excerpted English subtitles from a Chinese pirate DVD of Revenge of the Sith. (Contains a couple of swearwords but otherwise work safe). I haven’t laughed so hard in weeks.
The second Open Source Developer’s Conference will take place at Monash University in my hometown Melbourne, Australia from December 5-7. The call for proposals is currently open and closes this Friday. This is a great conference. Topics include:
There is also the category "Other" :) (There is also a refereed paper category for academics.)
More information here:
http://www.osdc.com.au/
I was a little freaked to discover my good friend Zak Greant (formerly of MySQL, now working for eZ systems) has not one but two dopplegangers. (Does that make them triplegangers?) I was honored to photograph them together.
You can see the photo on Flickr. Zak is in the middle, Dan Scott on the left, and Kees on the right. Apparently you must look like this if you would like to give a talk at next year’s OSCON.
I am back in the land of the living.
When Nat Torkington was designing the schedule for the last day of OSCON, he wanted to put up some really exciting talks that would keep people there until the end. I think he succeeded as the talks I attended were just fantastic (with one exception).
The "lightning keynotes" were mostly good, in particular two. First, Danny O’Brien On Evil , where he reminded us that evil occurs when good men do nothing, and that his empirical investigation into this - Project Do-Nothing - was going well. I also greatly enjoyed the presentation on Howtoons. These guys do cartoons (and parties) teaching kids to build really cool stuff, such as bottle rockets and "hoovercraft" (a hovercraft built with a vacuum cleaner). They are looking for syndication and I really hope they get it. Go to their website and watch the videos. Amazing.
There is a DIY trend going on at the moment with the advent of Make magazine, from O’Reilly. Luke and I bought all three issues that have come out so far and then subscribed because it’s so cool. I went to a presentation on the last day of OSCON by one of the editors, Phillip Torrone, who showed us how to blow up balloons with lasers, build a rotary dial bakelite cell phone, make bad things with old ipods, and hack your PSP.
On a slightly negative note, one of the last day keynotes was a very negative vendor keynote which just pushed the vendor’s own product. Not the done thing, old chap.
Over the last few nights I had the chance to catch up with many old friends, to make new ones, and to get to know some people a little better and that was also fantastic. Hopefully I convinced some of them to submit talks for OSDC, an Open Source conference located in Melbourne in December.
Overall it was a great conference. My fifth OSCON and probably the equal best one I have been to. (The first one was equally good but had the advantage of dot-com euphoria.)
Best things:
- The talks, of a very high standard this year.
- The new venue, large and nice.
- The usual networking and socializing.
- Giant exhibit hall.
- Hearing about new and exciting technologies
Not so good things:
- Vendor keynotes.
- Exhibit hall reception - with live band - was incredibly loud.
- No central area for people to congregate in.
Buzz for this year was around:
- Hacking Firefox and Mozilla, learning XUL.
- AJAX and related technologies.
- Digital identity (a good one for me from a research perspective).
- DIY hardware hacking.
- Security.
Note that the first two items both involve programming in JavaScript, a technology that was becoming vestigial and is now important again.
Tim O’Reilly did say that "SQL is the new buzz technology" (which made me laugh), based on number of mentions in job advertisements.
Final tangent:
One thing I haven’t mentioned anywhere yet is the talk/musical presentation given by why the lucky stiff, author of the Poignant Guide to Ruby. Definitely the weirdest conference presentation ever. On the DIY theme, read his article, "The Little Coder’s Predicament", on the barriers to entry for kids who want to learn to program these days.
Let me know your thoughts for next year as it appears I will be involved in the organization again.