As I mentioned during the conference, it suddenly seemed very silly to me to be blogging about the conference, when there was already plenty of that going on. I know I found it annoying that my RSS feeds were filled with posts about the same things, so there was little reason for me to add to that noise. But now that it's truly in the books, I think it's a good time to give my overall impression.
This was my third time, and it definitely was the charm (I missed the '07). I got to go on my employers dime again, which is something I quasi-negotiated when I took the job. The biggest value of going to a conference is still the conversations you have at meals or in the halls, without a doubt. Yes, you can watch the sessions online, but that lacks the human component. You can't share knowledge that way.
The keynotes are known as a platform for being product announcements. While that's very exciting to see live, and sure motivates us, it doesn't add a lot of value to the conference. What's cool about it is this year was that we got really good keynotes to go along with it. Not that I don't love Scott Guthrie (his video was hilarious), but you really want to see some big thinkers too. Bill Buxton and Debrah Adler were outstanding. I really got into what they had to say, more so than Ballmer or Gates in previous years. Those were definitely highlights for me.
The regular sessions included the kinds of deep dives I would expect, and they were 85% solid. I walked out of a couple, both from third-party speakers that had almost nothing to really add. What I didn't find on the agenda were the kind of process oriented sessions I've seen in previous years (except for one of those that I walked out of). I also didn't find that I was in a room with the creative people enough, and I'm not sure how you manage to create more situations like that outside of meals.
Overall, I enjoyed myself, and had the kind of brain rot by the end that you expect to get given the density of information you encounter. The biggest suggestion that I could make is to somehow classify sessions in terms of their level of difficulty or sophistication, and sequence them in a logical manner. There was so much Silverlight and MVC that I felt as if I had seen the same thing several times.
On a less important note, I think they failed to meet the kinds of dietary needs people have. If you were a vegetarian, you were screwed, limited to rice and salad. Seriously, did red meat have to be on every plate? And couldn't a sandwich just have good old wheat or white bread?
On another side note, epic win for Apple and the battery life span of the 17" MacBook Pro. Granted, I typically had the screen dimmed almost entirely (it's too bright for those dark rooms), but I actually got a real eight hours of use (plus sleeping) one day doing regular e-mail and Web stuff. Naturally, video, Flash and Parallels are things that greatly reduce the life span.
