Rob Windsor's Weblog : PDC

PDC Postponed

windsor — Fri, 25 May 2007 14:44:00 GMT

Microsoft has decided to postpone the PDC. I guess all the major new stuff was announced at MIX. From the web site:

We are currently in the process of rescheduling this fall’s Professional Developer Conference. As the PDC is the definitive developer event focused on the future of the Microsoft platform, we try to align it to be in front of major platform milestones. By this fall, however, upcoming platform technologies including Windows Server 2008, SQL Server codenamed “Katmai,” Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas” and Silverlight will already be in developers’ hands and approaching launch, which is where we’ll focus our developer engagement in the near term. We will update this site when we have a new date for the PDC that is better timed with the next wave of platform technologies.

Tags: [PDC]

Tons of Great VB 2005 Content

windsor — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 16:43:00 GMT

For those who didn't make it to PDC05 or didn't get a “Visual Basic 2005 @ PDC '05” CD, the content is now online. Artcles, videos, quick starts, software, sample applications and the VB sessions are all available. Check it out.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/pdc05/

PDC05 Sessions - Watch Online or Download

windsor — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:02:00 GMT

How cool is this (well, at least for people who know the difference between IUnknown and IDispatch or know what Gandalf's Dwarven name is)

The sessions for PDC05 are now online. For each session you can watch video of the presenter in addition to the Powerpoint and demos. Best of all, you can download the sessions for offline viewing.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2005/10/24/484434.aspx

http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/

Microsoft's WSYP Project

windsor — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 05:00:00 GMT

The WSYP project was announced at PDC05 but has seemed to have gotten lost amongst all the hype around developer tools, Vista and Office 12. Here's what Mauro Meanti, General Manager of the Server and Tools Business Group for Microsoft EMEA had to say about this bold initiative:

Windows Server reliability advances are the result of a continuous process of improvement that began with the release of Windows NT Server. But to be effective, the engineering process needs to evolve and be connected directly to the customer in real time. We can then improve the overall customer experience by collecting, analyzing, and responding to customer problems & feedback as it is generated in real-time. Project 'WSYP' is a bold step in that direction - some call it a 'drastic' measure. It is however a promising technique!

For more on the WSYP Project check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/technet/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=9999

PDC05 Day 4

windsor — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 15:59:00 GMT

Start PDC05 Day 4

End PDC05 Day 4

Hmmm Rob, it doesn't look like you did much on Day 4, why's that? Well, it's because I'm an idiot, or a least I had a pretty big brain cramp. You see I bought my plane ticket a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. I did this because I wanted to book a business class ticket on points and those are hard to come by.

Anyway, I booked a flight that left LAX at 3:10pm. I thought: half day at the conference, go back to the hotel by noon, check out, get to the airport, and Bob’s your Uncle. Unfortunately over time my brain turned having to be at the hotel at noon to my flight leaving at noon. (like this: Go back to the hotel by noon... Go back to the hotel by noon... Go back to the hotel by noon... My flight is at noon... My flight is at noon). So Friday morning I left at about 9:15, got to the airport, checked in, went through security and then about 10:30am when I looked at my ticket to find the gate number I noticed the departure time of 14:25. Oops, there’s a half day at PDC gone out the window, <insert naughty language here>. To make matters worse (oh yes, it gets worse) I had been sitting across from Dave Lloyd a day earlier while he was on the phone with Air Canada trying to switch his flight and hearing him discuss 1:00pm and 3:00pm (not noon) flights with the agent and I still didn’t clue in.

Anyway, the one silver lining was that I was flying business class so I got to spend the 4 hour wait in the Maple Leaf Lounge which meant free internet and free beer (the latter of which helped ease the pain... a little).

PDC05 Day 3

windsor — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:50:00 GMT

Start PDC05 Day 3

I hopped on the bus about 7:30, heading over to the convention center for the Canadian attendee breakfast. Mark Relph, who organized the gathering, was on the same bus and he mentioned that just moments earlier he had been sitting in the lobby of our hotel when Jennifer Garner (the future Mrs. Rob Windsor) walked thru. We knew that someone had been filming here for the last couple days it turns out it was the TV show Alias.

We had a smaller than expected group at the breakfast, only two tables full. It turns out that about half the people went to the other side of the dining hall, couldn’t see us or the flag, and decided to have their own little gathering there.

After breakfast I caught a little bit of the keynote on the upcoming server technology. While this technology is something that will affect my work in the future it’s not something I work with directly or find particularly interesting so the only observation I can make is that the speaker, Bob Muglia, reminded me of George Bush.

After the keynote it was off to the session I was most looking forward to, Paul Vick talking about Visual Basic language futures. Paul discussed how VB will expose the new LINQ features of the framework as well as how it will add extensions to make these features even easier to use. For example VB will fully support XML syntax, meaning you will be able write XML directly in your source code. Here’s an example:

Dim customer = _
    <Customer id=”6” name=”Rob”>
        <Address city=”Toronto” />
        <Invoices>
            <%= GetInvoiceItems(custId) %>
        </Invoices>
    </Customer>

Note the ASP like syntax to call the GetInvoiceItems method to populate the invoices in the document. Paul talked about a bunch of other features the details of which you can read at There was a bunch more which you can read at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/future.

The other talk I sat in on was also Visual Basic related, it was supposed to be on extending the My namespace but I have no idea what the actual topic was. There was some stuff on using My, some stuff on editing config files, some stuff on trapping unhandled exceptions but nothing on extending My (at least before I bailed on the session). It was too bad because extending My is something that will be useful in the Whidbey timeframe as well as beyond.

I spent the mid-afternoon hanging round the Big Room doing some networking and then headed back to hotel to pack and have a shower. There was a Canadian (plus Julie Lerman – who is a honorary Canadian) get-together in the hotel sports bar at 6:30 followed by dinner at my favorite restaurant in the world, Morton’s. Several drinks, a monster shrimp cocktail, and a perfectly cooked Porterhouse later I headed back to the hotel and crashed.

End PDC05 Day 3

PDC05 Day 2 - Part 2

windsor — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:17:00 GMT

Resume PDC05 Day 2

Not much more to report for Day 2. Went to the attendee party at Universal Studios Hollywood and couldn't find my amigos (Dave and Blair) so I spent most of the evening doing rides/shows that I didn't do the one other time I was there. It was nice to have a “limited” amount of people in the park, lineups for everything except the drinks were small.

End PDC05 Day 2

PDC05 Day 2 - Part 1

windsor — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 23:55:00 GMT

Start PDC05 Day 2

I woke up late, just after 7:30. Too much beer and not enough sleep last night. I got to the convention center just in time to grab some breakfast but not in time for the start of the keynote so I ended up answering email and reading blogs. I'm still catching up on my blog reading, there's just way too much going on here.

I caught two sessions in the early afternoon, Steve Lasker talking about Occasionaly-Connected Smart Clients and Anders talking about Language Integrated Query (LINQ). Steve's talk was a slight dissapointment because it was really about SQL Server Mobile not strategies for dealing with occasionaly-connected apps (like data validation, transactions etc.). Anders talk was good because it fleshed out more of the details hinted at in yesterday's keynote. From what I've seen so far I like VB's implementation of the link stuff better than C# even though the syntax still looks strange to me.

Right now I'm going to grab some sleep before heading over to Universal Studios for the Attendee Party.

Pause PDC05 Day 2

PDC05 Day 1

windsor — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:52:00 GMT

Start PDC05 Day 1

My day started with the Keynote marathon featuring Bill Gates, Jim Alchin and a host of people doing demos. Windows Vista, Linq, Office 12, Indigo (WCF) and Avalon (WPF) were the main topics covered, for a good overview of the content check out this post by Barry Gervin.

After the keynote I had a couple sessions I wanted to check out, one on Windows Forms 2.0 and one on SQL Server Service Broker. Both sessions filled up very quickly and so I was directed to the overflow rooms, for one session the overflow room was full as well and for the second I ended up getting lost and didn’t arrive until well into the session. The end result is I spent a good part of the day hanging out in the Big Room and networking with people I only see at events like this.

While I was on my trek to find the overflow room for the Service Broker talk I bumped into Mario Cardinal and we started chatting about the product. As we rode up the escalator Mario commented that with Service Broker there’s really no need for Indigo. I knew that Don Box (the guy in charge of the Indigo project) was standing right behind us so I turned to see his reaction which was kind of an interested grin. I asked Don if he was upset that all his work was now in vain, he said he didn’t care as long as people were buying Microsoft technology he was happy.

After the breakout sessions I headed over to the PDC Underground, a GrokTalk style user group meeting where several Regional Directors gave 10 to 15 minute talks on varied subjects. Oh, and there was an open bar and finger foods…. sweet.

Finally, I attended the .NET Influencer party held a the White Lotus in West Hollywood. For the most part I hung out with the people from MSDN Canada as well as the Canadian RDs and MVPs. Geeky chat, a good live band, Sparkle (a young lady - not the software), and too many Coronas… it was a fun evening.

End PDC05 Day 1

PDC05 Day 0

windsor — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 21:45:00 GMT

I arrived at LAX at just after 4:00pm. I flew Business Class (not because I’m rich, I booked on points months ago) and I’m sure there were several celebrity types (presumably returning from the Toronto International Film Festival) up there with me but the only one (I think) I recognized was Steven Soderbergh.

A cab from the airport got me to my hotel (Millennium Biltmore) in time for me to check-in and immediately rush over to the Convention Center to catch the .NET Rocks! Quiz Show. Pretty simple format, they had three rounds where a contestant would try to answer 5 multiple-choice questions, if they got the answer right they got a prize pack, if they missed it the question went out to the audience. As blogged earlier, I got a chance to answer a missed question and ended up winning a i-Mate Jam.

After that Dave Lloyd, Blair Leduc and myself went out for some Pizza and Beer.

End PDC05 Day 0.

It's Nice to be... Um, Me

windsor — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 13:57:00 GMT

http://objectsharp.com/blogs/dave/archive/2005/09/13/3385.aspx

Thanks Carl and Richard, you guys Rock!

Tags: PDC05

Trying To Get Ready For PDC05

windsor — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 12:43:00 GMT

I've got six hours before my plane leaves for PDC05 and I'm nowhere close to being ready. My desk is still a mess, I'm still doing laundry and I haven't even thought about packing yet. I arrive at LAX just after 4:00 pm and am going to try to get checked in to my hotel (the Millennium Biltmore) and get over to the .NET Rocks! Quiz Show for 6:00.

I haven't even left yet and I'm already tired.