On Saturday I attended DDD4 at Microsoft HQ UK, Reading. This is a event run by the community for the community. I had been looking forward to this event for the past few months, so I was excited that it had finally arrived. Luckily I managed to grab a lift off Jeff from UsingTangents (Thanks!).
On arrival everyone was greeted to sausage and bacon rolls with loads of coffee which was a great start to the day.
First session was on AntiPatterns and writing crap code. This could have been a really good session, but I think Ben must have been overrun with work (plus he had another session to plan for) and he used a non-admin account meaning his demo failed to work and kept referring to his notes throughout – good general discussion.
Next up was intro into Robotics studio which was great, shame bluetooth didn’t connect to the NXT but was still very good. I think I have managed to get Sarah to buy me one for Christmas 😀
Richard Fennell then gave a talk on continuous integration which was about the best talk I have saw. Two great demos with a good discussion about the use of the technology. Really good!!
At lunch time there was Grok Talks and a Park Bench discussion. I think this was a bit more popular than they thought so 60+ people where sat on the floor making it difficult to listen to, shame they didn’t use the empty Memphis room next to it – maybe next time. But definitely good use of the time!
I also got dragged kicking and screaming (ok, maybe not) into a back room my Matt Duffin and Mark Johnston (DPEs) for an interview for Channel 9 site. Think it could have been a lot better (:( sorry guys) but keep an eye out for it. Was going to try and get on the NxtGenUG podcast but I didn’t get chance to see Dave in the afternoon 🙁
Aspect Oriented Programming was next, but have to admit a lot of it went over my head.
Finally, DataAccess Layers – Convenience vs. Control and Performance? was up, this was the one I was looking forward to most but the projector failed for the first 15 minutes which was a shame. Still a great talk, but might need to follow up on a few things which wasn’t discussed.
BUT WHERE WAS THE SWAG?? Apart form in Richard and Dave’s session where they had 17Kg of the stuff wasn’t anything about.
Overall, Very good day. Maybe i’ll do a presentation @ DDD5.
Darn it; you choose the robotics session!
Thanks for the feedback Ben, much appreciated.
As for the swag content, or lack of it…we rely on donations from user groups and from Microsoft for serious swag. DDD3 was a swag-fest, the MSDN CD’s were a super piece of swag and we can thank Microsoft (Melita especially) for getting us those. Microsoft did provide the socks, which found their way out to the audience faster than I thought…I was very lucky to get a pair myself!!
You did note that BenL had two sessions, that’s true, and I’ve read some feedback along the lines of “one speaker, one session”. This is a rule that we *did* follow. Ben got two sessions for a couple of reasons, one of them being the fact that both his sessions received a lot of votes, a lot of votes.
Anyway, we’ll pick up on your feedback for DDD5, hopefully we’ll see you there 🙂
Hey Craig, it was still a great day and all being well I will be attending DDD5, going to try and attend WebDD too.
Cheers
Ben 🙂