How NASA uses PHP

To much self promotion

Among other topics, Toothman spoke of NASA's commitment to cloud computing, open source, and the creation of a public knowledge base.

I believe that NASA talking about Social, Mobile, and Web in the talks. I felt the talk was pretty ok, I would like to learn more about the program and the assessment in a lot of HTML 5 features.

Started off really weak. The first 2/3 had no value other than the name NASA. The last third partially redeemed the talk. It was mildly insightful.

This would have been better as a normal talk, nit as a keynote.

I personally like the questions from the audience, really great stuff. Especially the Google tracking information.

Good speaker, well done.

good overview

Appreciate JJ coming to Boston and giving the talk. Thank you! It was an interesting glimpse into NASA IT. I would have liked to hear a bit less about the general organization and a bit more detail on some of his specific experiences and challenges they encountered.

He was very nervous, and it was a great fun talk to hear about what NASA is doing and how they're using open source and contributing back. There could have been more detail, but it was perfect for 9 am on Saturday :D

Was a great start to the conference, it kept things at a highier level, which I think was good for a keynote. It got into minor details, and was very interesting to hear more about NASA and the experiences.

Very generic pr talk, appreciate for coming to give 9am presentation on Saturday.

Interesting enough but there did not appear to be a proper flow

Could have been a bit more focused on the topic of PHP in the organization; but it was still very interesting. Excellent speaker!

I personally thing there was WAY too much self promotion during this talk. I was also really shocked that NASA has a contractor implementing solutions based on out of the box applications like Wordpress and other 3rd party solutions when they are so stuck on security. I would have thought they would have rolled their own secure PHP code.

I didn't see the point of the presentation. The introduction with Curiosity had nothing to do with PHP. I wouldn't have mentioned Wordpress in his place. I don't think that the speaker had much knowledge about NASA besides what can be searched on the Web.

Did not see to have a lot of depth or even a strong connection to PHP. Given that this was kicking off the PHP Conference I would have expected something different

I think some of the critiques here are a bit harsh. Self promotion is a normal human endeavor. But he was a little light on PHP. Overall, enjoyed the talk and his enthusiasm.

I would have wanted to hear more about one or two PHP sites NASA uses in depth, rather than a broad coverage of a lot of sites.

It was ok. I wish there had been more on PHP/MySQL is NASA is using them...is PHP on Mars?

Very solid talk. It was fun to hear about NASA's mission to make data accessible, spread information and inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers.
The part about the importance of community really resonated with me. NASA seems like a good model for creating a culture of learning and a culture of excellence.

At this talk I learned that One-person startups are more likely to fail. Work with others!

thx

The talk was interesting but did not have any practical content. Rather than simply seeing a list of OSS projects at NASA, I would've enjoyed hearing about the interdepartmental challenges and strategies used to bring everyone on board; it could've been a great case study.

The presenting and slides were good if just a touch bland and tended to wander a bit.

I thought this was a good way to kick-off the conference. To show the diversity by which such a large organization uses the PHP language and the possibility for us as a developer-group to integrate open-source standards and adhere to strict guidelines, is an inspiration.

I tend to agree with many of the other comments, it seemed like there was too much exposition and a little too much self promotion. I also felt that there was a little lack of organization and flow in the talk. On the other hand I did write down quite a few things that I will share with my son who is just getting interested in space :).

Hi - I've read through the comments and I'm not sure that I agree regarding the self-promotional criticisms - what else is he supposed to talk about.

I did like the idea that NASA is trying to introduce a loosely unified approach to technology that has flexibility.

PHP? Not sure if he was the right speaker to keynote as he felt a little broad, as did for that matter the closing speaker.

I tend to like very technical talks, and that's why I tend to attend very technical conferences. On that note, while I think this was a good talk for the most part, it fell short in some aspects. At the start, there was too much time spent on an introduction and not enough of it was technical. Going deeper, there was a lot of talk about security and standards, but no details.

In fairness though, I've found that many times a good talk and a good speaker can be hurt by turning them into a keynote. It puts a lot of pressure on the speaker, they get nervous, and start thinking up ways to modify their talk to be worthy of the keynote slot. It's quite likely that this is what happened here. At the technical conference, the trick is to change nothing. The talk you planned on giving initially is what the organisers felt would be worthy of the keynote slot.

I found the talk to be interesting but did not feel that it applied to the state of current affiars in the IT sector

Nicely done. A good speaker and quite insightful with excellent topical content. I particularly liked his description of the struggle to shift the mindset from the proprietary tools to the newer open source options; a very common refrain in my experience.

-Brian Marple

A likable guy, and at times an interesting talk, but substance and context were lacking. We were all there to get pumped about PHP, not about the landscape and state of bureaucracy at NASA. Still good stuff, just not a good fit for the kickoff slot.

The "NASA" name created higher expectations. Surprisingly, it sounded like any large corporation - inefficiently running in silos. Honesty was refreshing. At least they seem to be working on it. More than I can say about many of our largest corporations.

In general, I dislike it when the talk's blurb differs so vastly from the actual talk given by the speaker, as it was the case with Toothman. Did he write the blurb for this keynote talk or did someone else? The blurb says "This talk will provide an overview of strategic approaches, tactics, and technical solutions being used to create a web platform that web developers can leverage".

Can anyone describe the "web platform" that NASA was using? If so, can those people describe which technical solutions were used to create it? And did you glean that from Toothman's talk? And where was the answer to the question "how does NASA use PHP?" While it's fun to oooh and ah over pictures of Earth from space and the Mars landing, walking out of the first day's starting talk -- which at most conferences, leaves you looking forward to the rest of the talks -- instead left me with a feeling of trepidation about how the rest of the speakers would be. Luckily, most of the talks over the course of the weekend far exceeded my expectations.

Enjoyable kickoff to a great weekend, a good reminder that Curiosity is living up to its name before everyone dove in their chosen tracks. Less boosterish than a typical keynote, it was a moving reminder that NASA, Americans, and humans have successfully landed a small vehicle on another planet. When so much of the national debate is focused on making people smaller, it was good to be reminded that we can think bigger. And that we work in an exciting field at an exciting and challenging time.

It was interesting to hear about some of the PHP projects at NASA. It was also an inspiration to think big - PHP in space!!!!

This is my first introduction to PHP and I enjoyed the pictures and the web references for future enjoyment of learning about NASA activities.