The concept of wrapping the explanation around a story set in zombie apocalypse didn't work for me. Felt like this was a 15 minute talk that was stretched to fit the time.
Unless I missed something - the http://php.net/manual/en/language.generators.overview.php has a better and clearer explanation:
"A generator allows you to write code that uses foreach to iterate over a set of data without needing to build an array in memory, which may cause you to exceed a memory limit, or require a considerable amount of processing time to generate. Instead, you can write a generator function, which is the same as a normal function, except that instead of returning once, a generator can yield as many times as it needs to in order to provide the values to be iterated over."
Should have spent more time focused on the trade offs of run time versus memory consumption.
Definitely fun and different! Struggled to get a clear grasp of generators and I'm not sure I fully understand when to use them yet...which I think I should.
I really appreciate the attempt to make the presentation more unique and fun, its a risky thing to do and you tried, so kudos for that, but I just got lost. Either I was too confused to understand the content, or I really am as dumb as everyone tells me.
Gotta give you props for taking a risk on a different style of presentation. Storytelling is a great way to introduce concepts without going in-depth, triggering the listener to follow up more on their own.
I have to agree with some of the others that explaining techncial concepts, while trying to wrap them in a narrative seems to distract, because your mind is visualizing the story, instead of groking the concepts.
BUT, that being said, my interest is now piqued to learn more about Generators, so mission accomplished. :)
In reality the technical part of the talk got a little lost inside the story, but that din't made it bad. This style is really fun and entertaining nonetheless. So I would say 5 for the inspiration and the story but perhaps 3 on the actual substance, it's supposed to be a tech talk after all.
Anyhow I would love to hear/see/experience more talks like this, especially in the daycamp4developers/nomadphp format.
I feel the post-apocalypse theme distracted from the talk. There didn't seem to be a link between the content of the talk and the theme- you could have used the same framework to do a talk about anything.
A lot of the time, the character being played sounded _really_ unsure about what he was saying, which made it difficult to trust the content. Additionally having half of the screen taken up by the image of the furnace made it hard to read the slides.
I liked the way arrays were contrasted with objects, and all that needs to be done to make an object behave like an array. However, I never quite got why generators fill the gaps between arrays and objects. Also the story line was interesting, but ultimately more distracting than engaging.
The content was an excellent overview of the history of iteration in PHP and how that has led to generators and to async job control using them.
I am, however, both in awe of the inspired idea to make it a historical play while being mentally too prone to distraction to be able to cognitively process the information and create them mental transitions to follow it, whilst listening to the dialogue. While the words sought to set up that understanding, I'm the kind of person who can only understand something complicated if you say it to me quickly. Otherwise, I have difficulty following.
I think your talk at Sunshine had a good balance of the two sides, but kept each in a distinct time slot -- which actually better facilitated the tale setting me up to understand the information. I just need to be smarter to be able to comprehend both at once.
Story approach made the history of iteration in php more enjoyable. I'm not sure if I quite grasp all the flexibility and power generators have to offer to PHP developers.
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PHP generators, a good topic, but the presentation was different which made it hard to comprehend the details.
I liked the way the technical information was presented. The explanation of the evolution of code leading up to generators was great.
The zombie apocalypse background-story was novel, but I found it distracting most of the time.
The concept of wrapping the explanation around a story set in zombie apocalypse didn't work for me. Felt like this was a 15 minute talk that was stretched to fit the time.
Unless I missed something - the http://php.net/manual/en/language.generators.overview.php has a better and clearer explanation:
"A generator allows you to write code that uses foreach to iterate over a set of data without needing to build an array in memory, which may cause you to exceed a memory limit, or require a considerable amount of processing time to generate. Instead, you can write a generator function, which is the same as a normal function, except that instead of returning once, a generator can yield as many times as it needs to in order to provide the values to be iterated over."
Should have spent more time focused on the trade offs of run time versus memory consumption.
Definitely fun and different! Struggled to get a clear grasp of generators and I'm not sure I fully understand when to use them yet...which I think I should.
I really appreciate the attempt to make the presentation more unique and fun, its a risky thing to do and you tried, so kudos for that, but I just got lost. Either I was too confused to understand the content, or I really am as dumb as everyone tells me.
Gotta give you props for taking a risk on a different style of presentation. Storytelling is a great way to introduce concepts without going in-depth, triggering the listener to follow up more on their own.
I have to agree with some of the others that explaining techncial concepts, while trying to wrap them in a narrative seems to distract, because your mind is visualizing the story, instead of groking the concepts.
BUT, that being said, my interest is now piqued to learn more about Generators, so mission accomplished. :)
In reality the technical part of the talk got a little lost inside the story, but that din't made it bad. This style is really fun and entertaining nonetheless. So I would say 5 for the inspiration and the story but perhaps 3 on the actual substance, it's supposed to be a tech talk after all.
Anyhow I would love to hear/see/experience more talks like this, especially in the daycamp4developers/nomadphp format.
I feel the post-apocalypse theme distracted from the talk. There didn't seem to be a link between the content of the talk and the theme- you could have used the same framework to do a talk about anything.
A lot of the time, the character being played sounded _really_ unsure about what he was saying, which made it difficult to trust the content. Additionally having half of the screen taken up by the image of the furnace made it hard to read the slides.
I liked the way arrays were contrasted with objects, and all that needs to be done to make an object behave like an array. However, I never quite got why generators fill the gaps between arrays and objects. Also the story line was interesting, but ultimately more distracting than engaging.
I thought the theme broke up the talk, and kept me engaged.
Story approach was hard for me to follow... frequent code examples in slides should help during a follow-up review.
Best talk ever. Very weird, though. I have learned a lot about iterators and generators
The content was an excellent overview of the history of iteration in PHP and how that has led to generators and to async job control using them.
I am, however, both in awe of the inspired idea to make it a historical play while being mentally too prone to distraction to be able to cognitively process the information and create them mental transitions to follow it, whilst listening to the dialogue. While the words sought to set up that understanding, I'm the kind of person who can only understand something complicated if you say it to me quickly. Otherwise, I have difficulty following.
I think your talk at Sunshine had a good balance of the two sides, but kept each in a distinct time slot -- which actually better facilitated the tale setting me up to understand the information. I just need to be smarter to be able to comprehend both at once.
Big fan of your talks Chris!
could have been more straight on what is being presented
Story approach made the history of iteration in php more enjoyable. I'm not sure if I quite grasp all the flexibility and power generators have to offer to PHP developers.
Great attempt at changing up how presentations are normally given, but the execution could use some work. A for effort.