Re: [Wikitech-l] Tech Talk: Hack - An Evolution of PHP: March 4th

Please join us for the following tech talk: *Tech Talk**:* Hack: An Evolution of PHP *Presenter:* Josh Watzman from Facebook *Date:* March 4th *Time:* 1800 UTC <http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Hack%3A+An+Evolution+of+PHP&iso=20150304T18&p1=1440&ah=1> Link to live YouTube stream <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqXqdqUhxy8> *IRC channel for questions/discussion:* #wikimedia-office Google+ page <https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/103470172168784626509/events/ckh4leo7qam35mc5560cr3d8qh0>, another place for questions *Talk description: *Although PHP has several features that allow engineers to be extremely productive in it, it also has several rough edges and pitfalls that cause problems (and often give the language a bad name). This talk will introduce Hack, Facebook's dialect of PHP. Hack keeps most of the PHP language -- all of the parts that make engineers so productive -- but sands down several of the more problematic sharp edges. It also introduces several new features, such as a simple yet extremely powerful syntax for asynchronous IO, to make the language even more effective for existing PHP programmers and newcomers alike.