TechEd 2001, Atlanta





5.00/5 (3 votes)
Live from steamy Atlanta, GA.
Tech·Ed 2001 - Atlanta
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Welcome to TechEd |
TechEd 2001 has arrived in Atlanta, and with it the hordes of sandaled programmers and besieged support staff. The attendees are spread over numerous hotels around the downtown area, with the conference itself being held at the Georgia World Conference Center
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Atlanta at night |
Arriving at the airport I was told that it was very easy to find your way around - which it is. I just wasn't told how big the place is. I got off the plane and sneered at the train that went between the concourses, then sneered even more ambitiously at the moving walkways that stretch the length of the long corridors. I figured that I'm still reasonably young and fit and that a casual stroll would be good for me. From the arrival gate to the luggage claim area was a 20 minute walk. I figured this is about 2km (1.25 mile)!
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The exhibitors hall |
It was an amazing sight to watch the attendees slowly but inexorably take over the hotel foyers, bars and amenities. On Saturday afternoon the pool area was full of intensely bronzed and fit (and intensely bronzed and not-so-fit) holiday makers in tiny bathing suits, and one very pale, very skinny developer in long shorts and a T-shirt. By Sunday afternoon the view was altogether different, and a lot more disturbing.
The Conference Center and Hotels
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The Georgia World Conference Center |
The attendees are spread over (I think) about 23 hotels and there is a steady stream of coaches provided to shuttle us to and from the conference centre. The strangest site is seeing the armed policeman standing guard at our pickup point each morning. I guess with most attendees carrying several thousand dollars worth of gadgets there could be some easy pickings. As developers we are not renowned for our commanding physical prowess in the face of danger.
Commando teddy-bear test drop from the 17th floor of the
Hilton.
Out and About in Atlanta
The choices for dining in downtown Atlanta around the hotels - as far as I can determine - boil down to Steak, Fajitas and Sushi. After an episode last year involving Sushi and Tequila that best remain forgotten, the choice is pretty much Sushi or Steak - but the later can be subclassified into Steak and Lager, Steak and Ale, and Steak. The adventurous can also try the burgers.
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We're a sad bunch |
Dinner time saw the area around the hotels hotels a-swarm with badged, bag carrying developers flowing between the eating establishments like ants, streaming between the establishments in visible lines, bumping into one another, forming clots at intersections, with each individual working toward the common goal of getting fed. It was a sight to behold. I was standing next to a guy who obviously was not an attendee and he looked at the hordes then shook his head and said "you know something is terribly wrong when downtown Atlanta is packed with pale skinned guys carrying laptops".
Monday
Microsoft certainly knows how to put on a decent meal. Breakfast and lunch were all you can eat affairs, and in between sessions there was a constant supply of potato chips, muffins, Krispy Kream donuts, diet coke and the second best chocolate chip cookies I have ever tasted. For the health conscious (or merely guilty at heart) there was fruit, muesli bars, juice and TechEd brand water.
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This table was once piled with donuts, potato crisps, chocolate and fruit. It was interesting to see which food group was left at the end of the day. |
David Cunningham flew in yesterday morning and promptly found the world longest escalator. He promised to show me tomorrow. I'm tingling with anticipation.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning saw some very subdued developers quaffing serious amounts of water and coffee. No doubt the exertions of the night before (late night coding sessions? hearty debates about the new features in .NET? The Tabernacle?) took their toll.
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The keynote speech buildup was a sound and light spectacle. Even the soundtrack was kinda cool. |
We all get Beta 2 CD's on Wednesday, but in the meantime is available for
download from Microsoft.
System requirements are far more modest than the original requirements for the
PDC bits: a 450MHz CPU, W2K, 192Mb RAM, a 800 x 600, 256 color screen and 3Gb
HDD space in total. A CD would also be handy if you plan on installing from the
disks.
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The hordes attempting to leave the keynote speech. |
Beta 2 is significantly different from Beta 1. Many of the namespaces have changed, and even some basic naming conventions (For example, WinForms are now Windows Forms). Everything from the System.Data namespace, delegates, keywords, and the IDE itself have all changed in degrees ranging from wide ranging API changes to more innocuous changes such as the addition or removal of underscores in names.
The beta 2 IDE is much improved, both in terms of usability and stability, and
companies can now create shipping applications (with a few limitations)
using the ASP.NET Go Live license.
Also announced at the keynote presentation was the availability of the UDDI
developer tools, the Mobile Internet toolkit, and a peer-to-peer code snippet
sharing service.
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Easily amused. |
Integrated within the IDE is a new peer-to-peer code snippet sharing service that allows a developer to enter a set of keywords in a dialog box and locate code snippets from other developer's machines. These code snippets can then be accessed across the 'net and pasted into the developers source code directly. It's essentially a Napster-style code sharing initiative.
Once the keynote was over it was back to hands-on sessions and seminars. Today's talks built on yesterday's introductory talks. Breakfast and lunch were again a nice affair (mmm - cheesecake!) and after the break-out sessions there we had an 'ask the experts' open peer forum where we had the chance to speak directly to the MS guys and ask them anything from the smallest niggling question on CE SQL to questions on design and implementation of full e-commerce applications.
I saw what David and I consider to be the worlds longest (and I think steepest) escalator. We rode it up and down with stupid grins on our faces. We also spent an entertaining few minutes throwing parachuted teddy bears off the top balcony at the hotel. Action photos will be posted soon.
I've finally worked out the difference between "y'all" and "all y'all".
Wednesday
Wednesday started with the usual breakfast of back bacon, eggs, fruit and something brown and unidentifiable. After that was more hands-on labs, more break-out sessions and more of the exhibitors trying everything they could to get their hands on your swipe card.
The announcement of the Mobile Information Server (and related toolkit) means that developers can now write mobile applications in a device independent fashion. Extending the idea that ASP.NET applications no longer need to worry about handling the idiosyncrasies of various browsers, the Mobile Information Server releases developers from worrying about the capabilities of individual devices. If you are brave and have lots of spare time to wade through lots of marketing fluff you can read more here.
Two things have really been evident in these last 2 days: Firstly, there are some seriously overweight developers, and secondly, the mood is really subdued. People aren't depressed, just, well, quiet. Maybe it's because .NET has been out for a year, so most of the attendees at least have an idea of what it's all about. This time last year we were all learning that C# was Cool and finding about about the amazing advances in ASP.NET. This years it's more about the fine tuning that has been going on, and a continuation of the evangelical message. Maybe it was also due to some of the higher profile guys not being in attendance. Chris Sells, Jeff Prosise and Jeff Richter weren't around, Tony Goodhew and Chris Anderson weren't there, and most disappointingly: no Kent Sharkey.
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A well-attended ASP.NET session. |
The weather has been perfect, which is a huge disappointment. I was hoping
for a tornado or two, or at least the remnants of a tropical cyclone. Obviously
this statement is spoken with the brash bravado of someone who has never
actually been near either of these two pieces of excitement. I was talking to a
guy about Tornadoes and he told me a story about waiting for a flight in an
airport in the south east of the States. He was waiting at the departure gate
when two tornadoes were spotted. Everyone in the airport was moved into the
center of the airport while the storms moved by, and when they were allowed back
the plane that he had been about to board had been turned around 30 degrees.
whoa.
The Visual Basic 10th Year Anniversary Party
It was a Visual Basic thing - you're not really interested are you?
It was pretty big, and took up the entire stadium at the conference center. I was a little worried when we entered the doors to find a whole bunch of mimes, but these were soon replaced by Blues Brothers look-alikes, jugglers, monocyclists and other performance artists. There was a ton of food and drink and a live bands, but unfortunately the accoustics were terrible, so you couldn't really hear them.
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Feeding 10,000 people takes some organisation. |
The funniest thing about the whole night was that the helium balloons were all removed and popped after some guys tied beer bottles to clumps of balloons and released them. Little beer gondolas were floating around 100 feet above our heads. It was so cool.
Apart from that it was a pretty quiet affair. It was a pity it was held indoors, since the weather was perfect. After being inside air conditioned conference halls all day it would have been nice to enjoy a southern summer evening outdoors.
Thursday
Thursday was the final day of the conference, and one that many people (me
included) missed, which sucked because many of more interesting talks such as
Nick Hodapp's and Ronald Laeremans' were
scheduled for that day. The conference center entrance turned into a baggage
warehouse. Once at the airport you could tell the attendees (I was about to say
'fellow geeks' but I figured that was harsh) by spotting the TechEd 2001 paraphernalia
and VB.NET T-shirts.
Overall?
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CommNet - the internal network for attendees. |
Overall it was a quiet affair. I talked to lots of people to gauge the general feeling and describe the tone of the conference and invariably the word was 'subdued'. Visual C++ developers in particular felt left out (again) because the 10 year anniversary of Visual Basic overshadowed everything. I think every VC++ developer in the house was gritting their teeth when speaker after speaker waxed lyrical about how wonderful and productive and powerful and scalable VB was.
Hopefully PDC will bring VC++ back into the limelight. It doesn't seem 'sexy' to MS at the moment, which is nuts because VC++ is the most powerful of the .NET languages, and the only one that can be used to write native code. Server side .NET has a brilliant future and solves obvious problems, both in terms of code writing and management, and in application performance and deployment. Client side .NET apps may face the same uphill battle that client side Java apps are facing, so wouldn't it be prudent to push the excellent advances made in VC++ (language, compiler and IDE) to keep current developers happy and convince them that upgrading to VS.NET is a Good Thing? Maybe MS is worried this will send mixed messages about their future goals, but as a C++ developer I just want to use the best tools now, and when better tools come out I'll upgrade to them too.