While at a PHP conference last year, which is the first I'd ever been to, someone did a presentation on abstract machines. At the end, there was a long applaus

While at a PHP conference last year, which is the first I'd ever been to, someone did a presentation on abstract machines. At the end, there was a long applause, with many people commenting that the presenter was a genius for understanding these advanced topics. I was dumbfounded since these are topics which even a minimal CS education would cover.