OT: I met the inventor of PHP tonight!

[codemonkey]

Tonight I went to the PDX PHP club meeting and met Rasmus Lerdorf, inventor of the PHP programming language. (PHP is actually the language that runs this forum) He was in town, along with about 20 of the top developers of PHP for OSCON, and decided to pay a visit. Afterwards, I actually got to speak with him and BS for quite a while.

Some of you probably know I've been pretty into PHP the past couple years, and for the last year I've had a job where my primary function is developing enterprise level PHP applications for my company. So I've been following it pretty closely, and its kind of taken over my life lately.

He was a really cool guy. Way more humble than one would expect (considering he's a "nerd god"), and he was actually pretty interested in what we are doing. We're replacing all desktop applications in my company, written in C, C++, Delphi, and Visual Basic, with PHP based apps. We are also interfacing with MySQL, Oracle, and Access databases with it. He seemed pretty excited about it, and had a lot of questions about our implementation, methods, etc.

All in all it was pretty sweet. I managed to get a lot of good advice out of it all, and a new outlook on what we're doing, and where we should go. Pretty damn cool!!

 

[Rootus]

Are you going to OSCON too?

This morning I'm going to listen to a talk by Larry Wall (inventor of Perl), and then one from Tobias Oetiker (inventor of RRDtool). It is definitely cool to have an opportunity to meet some of the people who are "famous."

 

[codemonkey]

Are you going to OSCON too?

No, I wont be making it, too much money and I dont think I could get out of work. Would be really neat tho.

I'm still waiting to bump into Linus Torvalds one of these days if he ever leaves his basement of his house in portland.

 

[Rootus]

I'm still waiting to bump into Linus Torvalds one of these days if he ever leaves his basement of his house in portland.

I was kinda hoping he'd show up at OSCON.

 

[codemonkey]

I was kinda hoping he'd show up at OSCON.

I was hoping to go to OSCON, but I couldnt get the company to let me off, or pay the 1500 bucks. I dont wanna foot the bill myself either. Oh well, maybe next year if I get that coveted job at yahoo or OSDN.

 

[Rootus]

Oh well, maybe next year if I get that coveted job at yahoo or OSDN.

Mmmmm... OSDN would definitely qualify as a dream job. I'm not quite enough of a kernel hacker to get a job there, however...

Dave

P.S. Nice avatar...

 

[codemonkey]

mmm... OSDN would definitely qualify as a dream job. I'm not quite enough of a kernel hacker to get a job there, however...

Yeah me either, but I'm working on my skills, hopefully in a year or two. I've at least got my name out there a bit with code submissions and bug reports, but I've got a ways to go.

P.S. Nice avatar...

Thanks. Pink looks good on me, doesnt it?

 

[Rootus]

Yeah me either, but I'm working on my skills, hopefully in a year or two. I've at least got my name out there a bit with code submissions and bug reports, but I've got a ways to go.

It occurs to me that I meant OSDL . Both would be cool, though.

Thanks. Pink looks good on me, doesnt it?

It's very becoming, yes.

 

[tarch at school]

I LUBZ TeH PHP!

 

[OregonMustang]

MS Rules...LOL

 

[codemonkey]

MS Rules...LOL

Boy someone wants to get a flamewar started!!

but seriously, I am an open source advocate. I love Linux, BSD, and many of the open source packages out there, and use them every day.

However, I will admit there are MS products that provide a better solution for some things, I just dont mention that in certain company

Also, I think for the average user's desktop machine, XP is a better choice. Linux just isn't ready for that stuff, in my opinion.

 

[Rootus]

Boy someone wants to get a flamewar started!!
...

Also, I think for the average user's desktop machine, XP is a better choice. Linux just isn't ready for that stuff, in my opinion.

Speaking of flamewars... I think MacOS X makes a better desktop choice than either XP or Linux .

Judging by the sheer number of Apple laptops at OSCON, I think I am not the only person who has come to that conclusion .

Dave

 

[codemonkey]

I think MacOS X makes a better desktop choice than either XP or Linux

Yeah and I think mac hardware is much better too, but its still too damn expensive for the average user. People say M$ is so evil, but they dont realize that their competition helps them out quite a bit!

$700 dell with XP or $2500 mac with OSX? We all know what most people choose!

 

[OregonMustang]

LOL...ok you make 100hr coding php...LOL
I"m just saying...there is elagence and there is profit and a living. If you are the academia type then sure I can see the beauty in mental masturbation. Personally I'm into getting stuff done...and making a good living at the same time.

I have not seen to many Enterprise Architectures founded in PHP....
it's a nice toy...

I think X is a great platform..and will eventually be the platform that replaces windows or gets...MS infused..muahahahah

 

[OregonMustang]

Yeah and I think mac hardware is much better too, but its still too damn expensive for the average user. People say M$ is so evil, but they dont realize that their competition helps them out quite a bit!

$700 dell with XP or $2500 mac with OSX? We all know what most people choose!

Apple has been brought into the fold...chipset now Intel....muahahahaha

~ He says with stained lips...."coolaid even"

 

[OregonMustang]

Tonight I went to the PDX PHP club meeting and met Rasmus Lerdorf, inventor of the PHP programming language. (PHP is actually the language that runs this forum) He was in town, along with about 20 of the top developers of PHP for OSCON, and decided to pay a visit. Afterwards, I actually got to speak with him and BS for quite a while.

Some of you probably know I've been pretty into PHP the past couple years, and for the last year I've had a job where my primary function is developing enterprise level PHP applications for my company. So I've been following it pretty closely, and its kind of taken over my life lately.

He was a really cool guy. Way more humble than one would expect (considering he's a "nerd god"), and he was actually pretty interested in what we are doing. We're replacing all desktop applications in my company, written in C, C++, Delphi, and Visual Basic, with PHP based apps. We are also interfacing with MySQL, Oracle, and Access databases with it. He seemed pretty excited about it, and had a lot of questions about our implementation, methods, etc.

All in all it was pretty sweet. I managed to get a lot of good advice out of it all, and a new outlook on what we're doing, and where we should go. Pretty damn cool!!

You have got to be kidding me....you are replacing apps with PHP?
How does PHP handle remoting? Cross process calls? Multitheaded Applications? Cross Platform Integration? Instrumentation? Health Monitoring of your aps?? Vendor Support i.e are you stuck with 3 lol? Endpoint Security?


Just curious...
It may rock....I'm just curious...last time I looked people were stringing the longest line of trash together to make it run. How did they go from that to Enterprise Software....am I missing something..

 

[codemonkey]

LOL...ok you make 100hr coding php...LOL
I"m just saying...there is elagence and there is profit and a living. If you are the academia type then sure I can see the beauty in mental masturbation. Personally I'm into getting stuff done...and making a good living at the same time.

I think X is a great platform..and will eventually be the platform that replaces windows or gets...MS infused..muahahahah

I'm not saying X isnt a great platform, it is. But for universal acceptance, you have to cater to the soccer moms who dont care whether X is based on BSD and far superior to XP (which it is) and they dont care about things like a 1 gig bus and reduced instruction sets. They care about price, and usability. And as the general publiic has shown, they will put up with a lot of nuisances to get it.

A coder like me has no problem learning more to get a better OS. I have no problem using linux to do everythign I need to do. A soccer mom does.

I also have no problem paying more for a better computer, because I work with it, I make money with it, and I use it 20 hours a day. But the average soccer mom doesnt see the value in it.

I think for mac to win the war, they have to cater to the average dumb soccer mom. It really is the largest market, and look what it's done for Bill Gates' bank account!

 

[OregonMustang]

There is no winning any game...he who is left standing wins...period. PHP has no corporate following per say...no champion to take it out other then the hordes of followers... Open Source has done a lot for the coding communities in large.... Junit, Ant, JCover...Continous Integration...all huge methodological as well as tools to get a job done right.

I like Java....just don't think PHP is even close...to it. I'm an Enterprise Developer/Architect who plays in the MS stack as well as Java and some legacy CICS systems. I have never seen anyone use PHP for other then serving pizza delivery front ends.

Now I have not been looking...but it may be maturing rapidly.

 

[Rootus]

$700 dell with XP or $2500 mac with OSX? We all know what most people choose!

I chose the Mac Mini for $500 . The iLife software that comes free with it is comparable to commercial software for Windows. For what you get, it ends up being quite comparable in price. For $2500 you are getting a top of the line Mac, dual proc, etc. They do make many models that are less expensive .

Dave

 

[Rootus]

I have never seen anyone use PHP for other then serving pizza delivery front ends.

We use it for webmail . Seriously, though, I think PHP is great for web-based interfaces. But web interfaces still have some maturing to do before they can replace native applications.

I am interested to see how the next year or so plays out. Intel is trying their trusted computing crap. Microsoft is trying to foist XP with minor enhancements as a whole new OS. Mac switching to Intel processors. Should be interesting.

I'm guessing that Windows Vista/Longhorn is just going to prove to the mainstream computing world what has been obvious to most of us for the last couple years -- Microsoft has lost their edge, and they are not showing any signs of regaining it. Windows will be around for quite a while, but it will steadily lose the dominant role. MacOS could take the throne right now if Intel would hurry up and buy Apple, and then release MacOS for any x86 hardware . Linux may end up eventually taking over the desktop space, but that's a long ways off, if ever.

I think Intel is going to back off the Trusted Computing hardware stuff, so that Linux will still run. There are too many technically savvy people around for them to force it on the world. If they tried, Via and AMD would take up the slack .

And Apple... well, who knows. Now they say there won't be any Palladium crap in the new Macs. That better be true, because I will never buy into the DRM horsecrap.

Dave