COMMUNITY Geek Cruise: Linux Lunacy

Linux Lunacy, Perl Whirl, MySQL Swell: Open Source technologists on board When Geeks Cruise If you are on one of those huge cruising ships and, instead of middle-aged ladies sipping cocktails, you spot a bunch of T-shirt touting, nerdy looking guys hacking on their notebooks in the lounges, chances are you are witnessing a “Geek Cruise”. BY ULRICH WOLF

eil Baumann, of Palo Alto, Cali- and practical tips on application develop- The dedicated Linux track comprised a fornia, has been organizing geek ment – not only for Perl developers but meager spattering of six lectures, and Ncruises since 1999 (http://www. for anyone interested in programming. though there was something to suit geekcruises.com/), Neil always finds everyone’s taste, the whole thing tended enough open source and programming Perl: Present and to lack detail. Ted T’so spent a long time celebrities to hold sessions on Linux, (Distant?) Future talking about the Ext2 and Ext3 file sys- Perl, PHP and other topics dear to geeks. In contrast, Allison Randal’s tutorials on tems, criticizing ReiserFS along the way, Parrot Assembler and Perl6 features were but had very little to say about network Open Source Celebs hardcore. Thank goodness Larry Wall file systems, an increasingly vital topic. on the Med summed up all the major details on Perl6 Developers were treated to a lecture on I was lucky enough to get on board the in a brilliant lecture that was rich with developing shared libraries, and admins first Geek Cruise on the Mediterranean, metaphors and bursting with informa- enjoyed sessions on Samba and hetero- scaring the nerds to death with my tion. That is, Larry gave us all the major geneous networks. “press” badge. This was a one week trip details, apart from the answer to the 64 in October, from Venice to Istanbul and thousand dollar question: When is the Am Geek, Will Travel back; an action-packed journey with ses- final release date? If you would like to meet the celebrities sions on Linux file systems, Samba, PHP, In fact, Larry flatly refused to com- from various projects in a relaxed atmos- Perl, and MySQL. ment. Although Allison Randal waxed phere and are not intimidated by the Guests benefited from the collective optimistic at the fringe of the conference, price starting at US$ 1,300 or EUR 1,200 wisdom of file system guru Ted T’so, “Maybe within 12 months,” Randall for the cruise (or less, depending on the Samba core team member Chris Hertel, Schwartz estimated at least twice that geographical region and the size of the and PHP inventor Rasmus Lerdorf, just time. ship), plus US$ 1,000 or EUR 900 for the to name a few. The Perl gang had the The twelve MySQL Sessions also sessions, a Geek Cruise may be exactly most impressive turn out, with Larry attracted a lot of attention, and this was what you are looking for. Wall himself, Allison Randal, the Presi- hardly surprising with the MySQL Perl and MySQL experts got their dent of the Perl Foundation and Perl 6 founders, Michael “Monty” Widenius money’s worth from the shipboard ses- Project Manager, as well as Randall and David Axmark personally headlining sions, although the Linux sesssions Schwartz, renowned for his instructive the sessions. On the subject of the past lacked depth. Of course, you could and amusing books and articles on Perl. and future of the database system in gen- always concentrate on taking in the Casey West’s talks on developing Web eral, Brian Aker and Monty Widenius tourist attractions. The Mediterranean applications with Perl and test driven delved the depths of the MySQL source cruise offered excursions to Istanbul or development turned out to be a genuine code and gave administrators a crash the ruins of ancient Olympia. This may treasure trove of information thanks to course in database optimization or high- sound more like Greek culture than Geek the sheer bulk of general considerations availability clustering. Culture, but hey, at least it’s culture. ■

Figure 1: A geek cruise is a great place to learn, relax, network and meet the experts, like Rasmus Lerdorf (top left),Ted T’so (below) or Larry Wall (center).

86 January 2005 www.linux-magazine.com