Snowball - The Blog

Now that I'm back home after a long week at Barcelona (and weekend at EuroDisney), it's time to round up things.

Since I was selected for Ask The Experts back in September, I was really looking forward to attending this event. It was my first TechEd and my first visit to Barcelona, and I must say, it was even better than I hoped for. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Ask The Experts, would I be able to help people, could I get in contact with some interesting people over at Microsoft...? Well, the answer is yes to all of these questions!

The hours I spent at the ATE booth really flew by, making me want to even do an extra shift, because you not only can help people, but you also learn a lot of interesting stuff. People that have their questions answered really are thankful, which gives a warm feeling inside.

When sessions are taking place, it's sometimes not busy at the booths, so you can have a talk on just about every technology with people that know a lot on their field of expertise. And also on my own booth, the Silverlight booth that is, I got to know some things I didn't know yet on Silverlight and WPF.
Now, let's talk sessions. The opening keynote was not really that exciting from a developer's perspective. I had my hopes up for a definitive release date for Visual Studio 2008, but sadly, we only got a confirmation it will be on MSDN "somewhere this month", which is now the official statement of Microsoft.
Some of the other sessions were really exciting, making you want to go home and try out the materials. Some others were a little less, but still very good.

The parties and drinks are really something too. On Tuesday, the influencers drink at a tapas bar brought me in contact with some interesting people too and the country drink on Wednesday brought together the almost 200 Belgian .NET'ters. In a moment of sadness, we remembered our friend David Boschmans, who passed away last August, once again showing that he will not be forgotten.

Overall, TechEd really is a great event for developers. It makes me think again of why I choose to start developing in .net. Hopefully, I'll be there again next year.

I want to conclude by thanking Microsoft for the oppurtunity and Ordina to be there!