The promised free WiFi access didn’t materialize until about 3 PM here after a fandango of new access points and provider snafus. Probably a good thing, though, as it allowed the small cadre of geeks who showed up to this con a day early to focus on the “In-Depth Seminars”.

Dan and I chose the “Master OOP in PHP 5″ talk hosted by Marcus Boerger, one of the architects of the PHP 5 object-oriented code. Marcus, who lives in Germany, offered up a very straightforward, detailed talks spikedwith a wry sense of humor that pops up when you least expect it. PHP 5 introduces a “revamp” (a term Marcus didn’t care for) of the OO system in PHP, and pushes it more in the direction of what passes for a standard in the OO world. Better privacy control, extensibility and overall greater functionality. A very worthwhile talk and very much on the bleeding edge of the PHP world.

The next talk was “PHP & AJAX: A winning combination” with John Coggeshall, a very outspoken and enthusiastic guy who works with O’Reilly (the publisher of many a great book on technology) and Zend (the engine behind PHP). AJAX is one of those buzzwords in the industry right now like “LAMP” (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) and “podcast”, which aren’t anything new (see earlier post on podcasting) but now have a name people can talk about. AJAX is Javascript (the duct tape of the Internet) and XML (sorta) that powers things like Google Maps and GMail. Very whiz-bang stuff that brings the web interface a little closer to being what you might expect on the desktop. John spoke a lot about what is wrong with AJAX, and suprisingly little about what PHP can offer it. He didn’t really tell Dan or I anything we didn’t know about AJAX, but in a roundabout way inform everyone that AJAX is still very new and fraught with problems. AJAX apps may seem simple on the web, but behind the scenes there are some very touch problems borne from the challenge of making computers interface with humans a little bit better. From that and the little PHP content, I gather that even PHP doesn’t really know what to do with AJAX until it matures a little.

John wrapped up around 3PM, which luckily allowed Dan and I enough time to beat a path eastward to the Kennedy Space Center. I’m a sucker for anything involving space, so this was a welcome and awesome side-trip. Kennedy Space Center sits out on a island off the Florida coast and our rented Toyota Prius got us there quickly, quietly and burning little gas.

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