PHP Extensions
Ever had a need for some library in C in your PHP code? Or want to hook into the engine to do evil? Or maybe you just want to make some part of PHP better. And then you say "but I don't know enough C". PHP extensions are actually quite easy to write, even for those with only the smallest amount of C knowledge, if you know the secret incantations. Write your own extension in this step by step tutorial which assumes you know nothing of PHP internals, the very basics of C syntax and little more, and have the ability to type "./configure && make && make install && make test".
I came into this talk late because I spent the first of the two hours in a different talk, so unfortunately I think I missed the “actually quite easy” part. What I saw I clearly missed the context to understand. I am glad the slides where posted so I can catch at least some of what I missed. That being said Elizabeth was a very engaging speaker and it was very exciting to meet someone so directly involved with the PHP language development itself. I would definitely attend another talk with Elizabeth.