So here I am in Montréal, Québec, Canada, at the PHP Québec conference. Y'know, down in North Carolina all the stuff about English-versus-French in Québec might be considered humourous, but here on the ground it can be seen that a lot of people take it very seriously indeed. The conference session descriptions have little icons next to them indicating in which language they're being given, for instance.
I here to give a presentation on the Apache incubator project and another one on using PHP to help deal with Web-based attacks on your Apache server. Actually, I already gave those sessions. Both were well-attended. As usual, I proved that time is my enemy by showing up late for one of them. The Thursday talk was at 09h30, so when I saw that I had an opening slot on Friday as well, I just assumed that it began at 09h30 as well. Bzzzt! Half an hour earlier, chum! So Damien Seguy caught me by surprise by calling be at quarter past nine and puzzledly (but politely) asking me if I'd care to join the people in the session. D'oh!
The trip here was essentially painless — aside from about thirty minutes of panic in Chicago when I forgot the time-zone change and thought I'd missed my flight to Montréal. I'll get back on Saturday, then on Tuesday off again to San Francisco for another OSI board meeting.
This is the first hotel I can remember staying in that had high-speed network access — but only wireless. No hardline high-speed in the rooms at all. The conference has a few wireless APs of its own around, but the one in the 'hangout' room on the 7th floor appears to be flaky. Fortunately, I brought my WRT54G with me, and it's currently filling the role while the original one rests. (Or prepares to die, whatever.)
Dinner Wednesday night was at Les Trois Brasseurs and it was the standard noisy bar/tavern arrangement. The meal was good, although I think I now know where all the cholesterol goes when it gets taken out of food. The conversation in my section was mostly social and political rather than technical; lots of talk about differences in outlook in the U.S. versus Canada, protectionism, censorship, and all sort of other wide-ranging topics. Some things are just weird — such as the fact that Canada [re]broadcasts the Superbowl, but not the adverts (the best part, someone said).
Someone was wearing a T-shirt that said,
- hack, n.,
- a non-obvious solution to an interesting problem.
Which is a pretty cool definition. I've seen it lots of times before, but each time I encounter it I think it's cool.
Someone asked me (I don't know why) what I thought the future held for 'PHP in the enterprise.' Personally, I think the only way it can go is up, particularly with companies like IBM embracing it.
In their efforts to be chic, the hotel has glass tops on the nightstands and the desk. The wooden edges of the furniture are rounded — and the edges of the glass tops have about a 3cm chamfer. Which means that if you put something anywhere near the edge of the desk, there's an excellent chance it'll slide off soon. Bah.
I see from mail received just moments ago that my manager, David Fallside, has been named a &BigCo; Distinguished Engineer. Way to go, David! Of course, I'm going to be completely unable to go anywhere such magnificence without getting tongue-tied, so it's probably just as well our offices are a couple of thousand miles apart.
And now it's time to go to the conference closing session, so I should publish this and go.
