WEBINAR: The Truth About Lambdas and Closures in PHP
March 29, 2012: 9am PDT
One of PHP 5.3′s terrific features is the ability to use lambdas, a feature which will surely relegate PHP 5.0′s lambda-style in the guise of create_function() to the dust-bin of cyberspace. This presentation will focus on what exactly lambdas are as well as the difference between a lambda and a closure, or whether there is any given their implementation in PHP. In addition, we’ll have a look at improvements pertaining to closures in PHP 5.4. Far greater emphasis is on live code demonstrations as well as in-depth discussion about the code.

Presenters: Sharon Lee Levy & Kevin Schroeder

You may find that my presentation deviates from the dry fare that typically characterizes technical talks. My methods may be unconventional, but hopefully will aid in clarifying the subject of anonymous functions in PHP and at the same time, pique the interests of everyone, including women and girls so they may explore PHP and computer programming.

“Let’s go to USC and check out the code camp!”, a friend of mine suggested. That would mean getting up early on the weekend when I prefer to sleep till 9am. It had been a while since the two of us had seen each other, and the price was right, being a free event, so I decided to go. A former superior had once told me to beware of “freebies”, that there is “no free lunch.”

One of the sessions I attended was billed as being about lambdas. For 60 minutes, I politely listened to someone deliver the technical topic overflowing with Microsoft terminology. I could have left, but curiosity overcame me; would I get past the jargon and learn something new and interesting? Upon returning home, I realized that the subject was really akin to anonymous functions in JavaScript. Hmm, does PHP have such things? That question motivated me to do some research which in turn resulted in some presentations of my own, as well as writing articles on this topic for php | architect.

A pivotal moment occurred last October when I attended ZendCon. A couple of friends showed up, too. When we ran into each other, they both urged me to repeat the lambda presentation that I had previously given for a joint meeting of LAMPSig and the LAPHP Meetup. They suggested I do it as an UnCon Session. I actually had been planning in advance to conduct such a session, but had started to loose my nerve gazing at the sight of hundreds of men and very few women. But, bolstered with the encouraging words of my friends, the following day before 6am, I raced over to the next building to add my topic to a much coveted whiteboard.

Over lunch, feelings of stage fright coupled with the opposite fear — that there’d be very few attendees — cropped up. How could my session possibly compete with those occurring at the same time, taught by some veritable rock stars in the world of PHP? Mercifully, my stomach calmed down before I launched into the presentation, during which, I kept noticing a late comer here and there. Amazingly, when the lights came on at the conclusion, there was a room full of people.

Questions? Comments? Contact Sharon Levy at slevy1 (AT) pipeline (DOT) com

The posts relating to this adventure in cloudy learning are collected here, and the rss feed for posts with the ‘Cloud Learning’ category tag can be found here.

LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 10x first video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJabEcoaZ9s

LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 10x second video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyAZ94cxmoo

LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 10x last video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpEj8stIbV8

LinuxChixLA SCALE10x Penguin Balloons

Neighboring exhibition booth, and Los Angeles area development and networking group Python Ladies, took this picture of our walking penguins at SCALE10x. Thanks and kudos to LinuxChix Los Angeles group member Betty for both original idea and the overall organization of ‘project inflatable’ for our LinuxChixLA booth’s popular give-aways.

LinuxChix LA will once again have a booth at

the upcoming SCALE!

Stay tuned for more details . . .

Yours in Tux,

/jillix

/jillix

]]> http://blog.linuxchixla.org/2011/05/23/more-linuxchix-la-pics-from-scale-9x-taken-by-my-mom/feed/ 0 http://blog.linuxchixla.org/2011/04/18/more-linuxchix-la-at-scale-9x-pics/ http://blog.linuxchixla.org/2011/04/18/more-linuxchix-la-at-scale-9x-pics/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:49:20 +0000 jillix http://blog.linuxchixla.org/?p=20986 The originals can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=scale9x&s=rec

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=scale9x&s=rec