ISerializable - Roy Osherove's Blog

I found this insulting actually. Okay, Phillip says Dave is one of the best developers he's ever worked with. Yet the guy is so destitute he can swing paying for himself? And exactly what does he do when his 'donations' total only US$1000? Rebate everyone? Take a long weekend in the Bahamas?

Very very few attendees at this PDC really belong there. The only ones that do are those who are involved with developing products with release dates coinciding with releases of the MS products. To all others they can learn just as much - and more - by reading up on all the blogging being done by those attendees and having hands-on with the betas (which BTW are likely not being given out as most are just alpha bits). Obviously Dave's employer made a strategic decision that their developers belong in the group of us who do not need to attend.

I made a personal prediction the other day. Wave one of blogging will be ecstatic in nature over the "cool" things being presented. Wave two will be the inevitable backlash of postings from many who discover they were misled and are previewing some very UNREADY software. Wave three will be postings that realize the biggest reason one should attend is really unrelated to the "cool" things... instead the networking potential and realization.

Problem is, way too many are going for the "cool" things only. They don't realize previewing early alpha bits is relatively meaningless to one's career compared to concrete development of solutions.

Roy, I agree 100% with Dave. The long and short of it is that there will be more shows like this and, if this guy cannot afford to go to this years big event then, he should start saving up for next years.

I'm in pretty much the same boat as you are - I live in Australia. As you know, many of the really cool shows are in the US; which costs people like us "an arm and a leg" to attend. I was lucky enough to have saved enough money to attend a "cool" show in Redmond earlier this year and I'm currently saving again so that I can afford to go to 1 US show of my choice next year too. No pain - no gain! :-)

I am sorry this insults you. But I actually think I belong in this "select group", considering my comany is part of the beta program for the Speech SDK and server and will be utilizing BizTalk 2004 when it is released.

Anyway, when it comes down to it Roy is 100%correct in saying that it is practically impossible for this to work. But it doesn't hurt to try. Maybe Microsoft will suprise me and give me a free registration pass.

I think the only viable reason to object to something like this would be because it might generate a chain reaction of other poeple begging. we do *NOT* want that, do we?
If I really look at it, I get upset seeing people begging because internally I feel "Hey, If he gets money like that why should I have to work for it?". But sometimes You just can't put yourself in the same situation as other people. You can't truly judge someone if they should or should not go to the PDC. You're not in their shoes. Maybe the big company he works in is too stupid to realize the value of sending someone to the PDC from its ranks. Maybe he really should be there because he's one of those guys that you *know* should be there. Whatever. fact is, I'm trying not to judge someone other than me in this situation because I might be totally and utterly wrong. So , I give them the benefit of the doubt. If they feel they should be asking for donations, let them. No skin off my nose.

Oh I see dave bettin has written his comment. Good for you dave. I may not be 100% behind you on that course of action, but hey, I may be totally and utterly wrong. I see blogging as oppertunity land, and Bettin is just catching some oppertunities. Everyone else can either love it or leave it. I like that.

Also, please don't take this to seriously. Its a great way to generate traffic to my new site.

It would seem some company named Verisign already owns that domain...

(tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Dave, I'll post a final comment here only and not your weblog only because... well, at first I was going to say it fits here best, but come to think of it I will also add that I feel no desire to add to the traffic on your site. (Please, nothing personal meant, let me explain.)

I was wrong when I used the word insult. It implies something much more personal than I ever meant. The insult I felt was an insult to my intelligence over this whole hype on the PDC. I commented quite a bit about a month ago on this in various places and have refrained since - until now.

Without sounding judgemental of you and your position in any personal manner... the context from which you speak simply amazes me. Maybe you belong in this "select group" like you say, but I believe I can safely say two things.

First, your employer doesn't think so. At least they feel they won't receive enough payback from paying your way. Maybe they are correct in this - in which case it must be only your opinion that your presense there is almost mandatory. Maybe they are incorrect about this - in which case I have to ask why haven't you found better employment.

Second, if you truely do belong in this select group due to your talents - and please, I'm not saying you aren't in this group - then you must not really be doing something right. Either you are grossly undercutting your worth and being paid a small fraction of what you should be, or you simply do not know how to attain personal financial goals. Part of the 'Career Calculus' concept means taking responsibility for your own career and that includes spending that $5000 wisely - including on the PDC if you are a "select group" developer and it has value for you.

No matter what though, I wish you well and I apologize for my poor choice of words.

This reminds me of the spoof emails from a few years back with the beggar holding the "know HTML, will code for food" sign.