niq’s soapbox

A few little pearls around ApacheCon. How do I make a meme for folks who are here at [apachecon&planetapache]?

I liked Chris Davis “We are romans“. That’s a misquote, but he was commenting on meritocracy, and that you got roman citizenship by making contributions to the society. Ditto apache, of course.

Like a steam engine seems another good candidate (that’s about innovation curves and intellectual property …). But just now I need to concentrate on Roy’s talk

Two of three days of the main conference now gone.  I’ve met a number of people I’ve not seen before, and seen some interesting presentations.  The highlight of today was Ivan Ristic’s mod_security talk: that module is getting seriously interesting.

There were other security-related talks today, including one on web application security.  Why can’t people use the best tools available?  It seems that whereas everyone knows you protect against SQL injection by using prepared statements, few will take the similarly-simple-and-effective measure of using a markup-aware parser to protect against scripting hacks.  Instead, they’ll try to enumerate scripting situations, and hack up elaborate expressions to try and catch scripts “concealed” by tricks like embedded whitespace or comments.

That apparent lack of awareness spilled over into chrisjdavis’s community talk, when he spoke of having had long discussions about HTML vs XHTML (how many angels can dance on your pinhead?)  HTML was chosen - which is fine - but for the wrong reason: namely, the perceived problem of ensuring well-formed XHTML from user inputs that may include markup.  He was expecting me to heckle, and at that point I did mutter something about it not being a problem, or being a problem with a simple solution: use markup-aware tools.  Chris being a man to get the better of any heckler, there’s now an onus on me to .. um .. explain what I meant.  And other things I’ve heard today hint that it might be of use more widely.

Well, it’s a problem I’ve addressed successfully in mod_annot.  So what I propose to do now is write an article explaining how it works, and including relevant C code - which should be straightforward enough to convert to PHP or other language.  Chris (or anyone), if I haven’t done it by, say, end of next week(end) (April 20), please heckle me!

On an entirely different note, this evening I went to Un Ballo in Maschera at the dutch opera.  ‘Twas musically impressive, and I liked Het Muziektheater, a large modern theatre with clear sightlines, above-average legroom, etc.  But the production - set right in our time - had me baffled.  Erm, … what?  Coming out of the theatre and looking around for a bite to eat but not a full meal at 11pm, I managed to get quite lost in the backstreets of Amsterdam - though in a much nicer area than around my hotel (Station, Damrak) or indeed the conference hotel.  Eventually headed for the main road, and saw the distinctive Nemo landmark, after which I was OK.

OK, since last week was the time for mischievous fun, let’s start by making it perfectly clear that Apache 3.0 is vapourware!

Roy’s keynote closing Apachecon on Friday will, we’re led to believe, will talk about Apache 3.  I expect any hint at concrete revelations may be pretty incidental to it, but there was a bit of dialogue last week along the lines of Tell me what you decide and I’ll announce it …  We broke it!

Tuesday was a day to talk about visions for the next generation webserver, with probably the greatest number ever of today’s core devs gathered around the same table.  Chief visionary for radical updates was Justin, who not only introduced some potentially-interesting ideas, but was prepared to defend them in the face of questioning from natural sceptics like Yours Truly.  Which is not, of course, to say that he answered every question.

Without going into technical detail, key issues discussed included core architecture, performance, configuration, and compatibility.  And I think we’re closer to agreement on some of the issues than we were before, having made progress in reconciling at least some of the conflicting concerns in the meltingpot.

Of course, there were no takers for now who’s actually going to get hacking on it

I’m in Amsterdam for ApacheCon,+Hackathon, which starts tomorrow.  Hope and expect to have an interesting week.

The journey went pretty smoothly.  The only bit that was playing sillybuggers was the tube across London from Paddington to Liverpool Street.  I got on to a circle line train, which first took forever (paused in the tunnel) to get to Edgeware Road, then decided it was going to call itself a some-other-line train and terminate at Moorgate.  I’m not confident of navigating from Moorgate to Liverpool Street[1], or I’d've walked.

Even so, I’d caught an earlier train than I had to into London, and I had some spare time at Liverpool Street.  I’d just missed the 19:18 to Harwich, and I was feeling pretty peckish, so I went in search of food.  Seeing a Pizza Express, I decided that would meet my needs.  It did: the quality of both the food and the service were a pleasant surprise, though the pizza was smaller than expected.

On to Harwich, and boarding the ferry has become a much smoother operation than a year ago, since the walkway for the new (bigger) ferries is now complete.  I was able to enjoy a shower and a beer (both much-needed) in comfort before we sailed, and went up on deck only very briefly.  Got up early to overindulge in the all-you-can-eat breakfast.

Travelling straight to Amsterdam would’ve got me here at 10 a.m., so I had time to spare, and decided to take a look at Rotterdam en route.  Since Rotterdam is best known for being a mega-port, I headed south from the station towards the main river, in the expectation of finding interesting things.  I soon found myself on a path marked as a main sightseeing route, but unfortunately everything along it was closed, including such touristy things as the harbour museum and maritime museum.  So I headed back towards the station and the train to Amsterdam.

While I may have missed out on the history of a megaport, I liked Rotterdam’s architecture.  I saw more new than old, and it was classic big-city stuff on a scale more like an American or Asian downtown than most of Europe.  But it all seemed to fit in nicely, and left ample space for comfortably wide streets, walkways, etc.  A sharp contrast to the ugliness of the suburban sprawl I had passed through on the journey from Hoek van Holland.

Optimal arrival at Rotterdam station: 30 seconds later and I’d have missed the intercity to Amsterdam.  As it is, I arrived before noon, and since my hotel is just across from the station, I was able to check in early.  That is to say, do the paperwork and leave my luggage: room wouldn’t be ready ’til 2pm.  I made sure to request that my room should be both quiet and non-smoking (thankfully, it is), helped myself to some leaflets and a map, and went out.

What happened next is another posting.  Suffice it to say, a good but expensive day, just concluded with a gorgeous thai meal.

[1] OK, I could do it, but would likely get lost a few times on the way, and I was carrying a full backpack.

Am I ready for departure to Amsterdam?

• Ticket - to be collected at London Liverpool Street (eticket)
• Passport - check
• Euros - check.  Dammit, just twelve euros something left over from last time I was in .eu (real).  Can I afford more at today’s rates?
• Plastic money - check.
• Clothes for a week, pyjamas, toothbrush, fleece, waterproof - check.
• Laptop, phone and their chargers - check.  Power adaptor - check.
• Book.  Pen & paper.  Check.

OK, so what have I forgotten?  Dammit, too late, whatever it was.  Why didn’t you remind me earlier?

Following my exceptionally pleasant journey last year, I’m once again booked to travel to Amsterdam by train+ferry for ApacheCon the week after next.

What was best about last year’s travel? The return journey, overnight in a very nice cabin on a luxurious modern (and huge!) ferry.

What was worst? The sleeper train to London, which fell woefully short of decent standards of comfort.

So this year, I’m travelling overnight on the ferry in both directions, and doing the train journey by day. Best of both worlds!

For any other Brits who have yet to book travel, I can strongly recommend the deal offered by dutchflyer, which bundles train travel with the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry. For those living further north, I note there are other ferry options including Hull-Rotterdam and Newcastle-Amsterdam. I can’t speak for those routes, but I’d certainly be interested in trying them if they were geographically right for me. Come to think of it, we have a good direct train service Plymouth-Newcastle, so maybe that’s an option worth looking at for a bit of variety!

BTW, I’m booked into the Park Plaza Victoria hotel this year (the conference hotel wasn’t an option - it’s fully booked). Anyone else there for ApacheCon, feel free to drop me a line!

My latest article is up on El Reg. It’s another potentially-provocative rant, this time about the semantic web. And for the first time at the Reg, it’s had some not-entirely-trivial editorial attention between my submission and publication. Expanding many of the acronyms and adding links is probably a Good Thing, but I’m less convinced by splitting some paragraphs. One or two clauses or sentences have got lost or changed. But on the whole, it says what I meant to say.

I also thought of busking it as a lightning talk for ApacheCon, after being inspired to have a rant in the first place by some of the talks there. But I chickened out. The subject is one that could’ve been quite offensive if (or rather when) I fluffed the delivery, and I don’t have the performance skills to make it positive and entertaining.

As ever at ApacheCon, Sander Temme organised a PGP keysigning party. This year (unlike last) I got my arse into gear in time to make it. There are some new signatures on my key. And I’ve just been through signing keys of people whose identities I confirmed, and who I hadn’t already signed. A few of them were surprising: people whose keys I’d have guessed I’d already signed. And one who needed a new key signing, as the one I’d signed previously was on a laptop that got stolen, so he revoked it.

The keys I’ve signed, I’ve uploaded to the keyservers. Generating ascii-armoured signatures and mailing them to people is more faff than I want to engage in just now

As I write (but not, alas, post), I’m in my cabin abroad the Stena Britannica ferry, on the night crossing from Hook of Holland to Harwich. I’ve been up on deck to watch the lights, and I’ve been to one of the two very pleasant restaurants for a light meal. That is, light because I’ve gorged myself at ApacheCon: I’d have loved to indulge in a large meal with booze if I wasn’t already well-stuffed.

The cabin is a fraction of the price of the sleeper train, let alone the conference hotel in Amsterdam. Yet it’s got all the luxuries. OK, it’s smaller than the hotel room, but it’s certainly not cramped and uncomfortable like the train: in fact it’s very pleasant. It’s got en-suite shower and loo, desk and chair, and power for the laptop. The shower and the aircond work better than at the hotel. All that’s missing is ‘net access!

The fly in the ointment is the faff of getting on and off without the passenger gangways. I understand that’s a short-term problem and should be resolved soon. Even my criticism of the (smallness of) drinks coming across has been largely resolved: they seem to have (some) more sensible-size ones now (beer and water, but alas not tea), and they tell me the tap water is fine to drink.

All in all, I can enthusiastically recommend this ferry as a civilised way to travel. Thank you Stena Line (and DutchFlyer)!

Well, one day to go. Last two days+nights have been ’silly’ overindulgence in food and booze; today will be more restrained ‘cos I’m setting off for home before drink-time this evening. Lots of piccies/etc going up on the web under an apachecon tag.

Yesterday was the main social binge. First came the ‘lightning talks’ which are the highlight of every ApacheCon. With google-beer[1]. Next was the party just up the road with sun-beer[1], and also wine and nibbles. Rather good nibbles, after the ApacheCon food itself has been seriously disappointing. I slipped out of that one when a bunch of smokers lit up and made it a no-go area, and found myself in a jolly but ad-hoc group. We wandered the streets of Amsterdam, ending up in a Portuguese restaurant, where more food and booze was consumed. Thereafter, Yours Truly wimped out and returned to the hotel.

And now, a final day of conference. Time for breakfast!

[1] Or rather Heineken