.Net Developer conference in Dublin today
I was in a Microsoft conference here in
First I was unimpressed by the venue organization, not because of Microsoft but maybe the organisers.
Indeed I am not sure now if it was managed by Microsoft at all ;-)
I don't expect in a day like that a huge lunch, but there man it was really appalling: small sandwiches, a soup and a coffee, all in 15 minutes!
Anyway to get back to the point, I found the first speeches very boring, maybe I was not fully awake at
It was like a marketing exercise, trying to convince the audience that .Net is the way to go.
And that's where I say I am a bit confused. Aren't we supposed to embrace the all .Net stuff since one year, or more if you include the Beta process?
Does it mean that this technology is not really adopted here? I don't know the answers, but I can say that regarding the few developers today, no more than 100, it's not an easy road for Microsoft.
I was very surprise when a speaker asks to the audience if anybody use already VS .Net.
I am sure he didn’t say VS .Net 2003, but he was talking about the current version.
I also didn't like at all the non sense of having somebody talking about his commercial success with .Net, and how it changed his life (good for him ;-)), and suddenly just after without any break, a deep speech on Interfaces, how to implement them, interesting but absolutely no connection with the precedent theme !
This afternoon, hungry but determined where all this will go, the speeches were about Web services and XML.
Hallelujah, XML is there now everywhere and if you don't like it, you are a bad developer. That was the general feeling I had from the orators.
But I reckon that the last speaker, who was really good, kept my interest (and my eyes opened). Stephen Turner, from Microsoft UK, did a truly amazing job on presenting Office 11, and despite the lack of time, with a captive public, explained concisely the main features of Office 11 and all he modules (Infopath, XML, wordML, Task Pane, etc...)
And now the light came inside me, showing the meaning of life, and ... XML