VSLive/MDC Essentially over...
The Post Conference session is tomorrow, but most folks have gone home. So, was it worth it? I think so. In fairness, I need to say I got here as a Press person, covering the event for blogs.mobilizedsoftware.com, and so I did not pay for the conference. I did, however, pay for the travel and lodging, and I missed a week of billable work (I am an independent contractor).
As I mentioned here I do think that taking responsibility for your own career is everyone's responsibility (especially software developers), What did I learn?
I went to Josh Holmes' session on Code DOM. I could have saved a great deal of grief on a recent project had I seen this talk 6 months ago. Next time, I will be ready. I learned about how to get the best performance out of the Compact Framework, and I learned a great deal about SQL Server CE SQL Server Mobile, both the current version and the next. A chance meeting with a vendor may end up getting me connected with someone who was not even here at the conference who happens to know something about using Speech Recognition for Medical Transcription, something I was on the lookout for at the request of a client.
And that is the great thing about going to a developers conference. Sometimes the sessions are crap (I was at a snoozer or two) but overall, the interaction with peers and the chance meetings that can happen with a large number of technical people in one place is totally worth figuring out how to get to a conference whenever one that is appropriate to the work you do is available