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Lazycoder doesn't think PDC is worth the cost

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Lazycoder: Microsoft Tech Ed and PDC not worth the time or money

 

What do you really miss by not going to a PDC?

You miss a chance to learn about upcoming MS technology directly from the architects and developers who are building it, and you miss a chance to interact with 5000+ other professionals who share your passion for coding.  Yes, we do go out of our way to make as much information as possible publicly available after the conference, but there’s no substitute for being in the room to participate in a panel discussion like this one.  You won’t find any other conferences where you can ask a question about CLR internals and have it answered by Anders, Chris, Jim and the rest.  Yeah, the panel transcript was blogged, but what wasn’t blogged was the 1:1 interactions with between the Microsoft engineers and the 40 attendees who crowded around the stage after the panel was done.  Nor did anyone blog the conversations that took place among the thousands of attendees as they interacted during sessions, labs, meals, etc.

 

If you don’t think you’re the type of person who’d take advantage of being surrounded by thousands of the sharpest Windows developers on the planet, then you are right, PDC is probably not the best use of your time.  Just like if you’re the type of student who learns everything you need by reading the textbook, paying for university is probably not the best use of your money ;)

 

Notice how the people at blogs.msdn.com will hype Tech Ed and PDC but you hardly hear a word about non-MS sponsored events, like VS Live, over there. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think it’s disingenuous.

Lazycoder's blog tagline is "I don’t know, therefore I Google."  But I guess he doesn't Google too often, because when I ask Google to search blogs.msdn.com for references to conferences like BorCon and VSLive, I see plenty of results.  Not as many as for Microsoft sponsored events, but that’s only natural.  People blog about what they’re working on.  A high percentage of Microsoft people are involved in PDC and TechEd, so it’s natural blogging material.  A much smaller percentage attend other conferences, so you get lower traffic.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2005
    I think its just not very practical to have every developer try attend if it was "cheap". More attenders and you'd likely want bigger venue etc.

    However that could be considered:

    $30 €25 PDC.NET pass

    This would give access to live or soon after access to keynote videos, panel audio/video and some other content otherwise hard to find.

    I believe there are many students, enthuasists and hobbyists etc who'd like to attend just for the kind of value that can be well delivered over the Internet. And currently MS is "missing" them from the PDC. Even if the event was free, many of them wouldn't be coming as, surprise, just the travel etc would be too expensive in terms of the value this group of people is looking for. Currently this group will get the information as drops later around the blogs and some other sites, MS could tap in here to offer a more centralized option. Of course this could be made costly or cheaply.

    Channel 9 release of PDC keynotes/panels as single DVD image torrent would reduce bandwidth costs if the release was loud and public. So either that or the small fee.
  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2005
    MobilizedSoftware
  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2005
    Found this link from the MobilizedSoftware blog, some interesting discussion in there. http://weblogs.asp.net/dreilly/archive/2003/08/09/23345.aspx

    Regarding how much time you'll get with Microsoft folks, I mentioned in http://blogs.msdn.com/jmazner/archive/2005/03/14/395303.aspx that a quarter of our sessions had less than 200 people, which is a pretty good size for some direct interaction and Q/A.
  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2005
    "Nor did anyone blog the conversations that took place among the thousands of attendees as they interacted during sessions, labs, meals, etc."

    I agree the interactions are useful if you are there, but even attending doesn't guarantee you are to be at the right place to participate or listen in to these conversations. I feeling I got after going to PDC 2001 and 2003 is that it is like drinking water from a firehose. There must be a better way for these interactions to happen.
  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2005
    "Nor did anyone blog the conversations that took place among the thousands of attendees as they interacted during sessions, labs, meals, etc."

    I agree the interactions are useful if you are there, but even attending doesn't guarantee you are to be at the right place to participate or listen in to these conversations. I feeling I got after going to PDC 2001 and 2003 is that it is like drinking water from a firehose. There must be a better way for these interactions to happen.
  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2005
    Mark's blog: I agree the interactions are useful if you are there, but even attending doesn't guarantee you are to be at the right place to participate or listen in to these conversations. I feeling I got after going to PDC 2001 and 2003 is that it is like drinking water from a firehose. There must be a better way for these interactions to happen.

    PDC was good for me in 2001 and 2003, but that doesn't mean I will be going to the one this year.