Another DevTeach has come and gone and, like the past events, this one was fun and informative. This was the first time the conference ventured out of Montreal but it felt very much the same - very intimate and community focused. The other thing that felt like Montreal was the weather, it held around freezing for most of the week and snowed pretty heavily over the weekend.
The day before the conference started Microsoft hosted two day-long events at their offices in city. There was the Canadian .NET User Group Leader Summit and an MVP Open Day. When I first heard that the two events were running concurrently I was concerned. Many of the group leaders are also MVPs and I thought forcing them to split time or choose one event over the other would end up detracting from both. In the end my fears were unfounded, the summit was the our largest ever and the interaction with the MVPs added value that would have been impossible to get any other way.
After the summit most of the group leaders and MVPs headed over to Steamworks for dinner and the Party with Palermo. Jeff (along with party sponsors) always throw a great bash but this one ended a little differently than the others. Just after last call was announced Jeff realized that we hadn't quite hit the amount allocated for the bar bill so he got on the mike and encouraged the remaining guests drink up. This led to a rush on the bar and the ordering of rounds of shooters (many of them being a deadly combination of Tequila and Tabasco called a Prairie Fire), it also led to a bunch of nasty hangovers the next morning.
In terms of the conference itself - well, it was a busy three days. I didn't get to as many sessions as I wanted to but that's generally the case when you're a speaker. Of the sessions I did manage to see, two stand out: Richard Cambell and Kent Alstad's excellent talk on ASP.NET Scalability and Dave Laribee's session on Domain Driven Design. I also had some great conversations in the hotel between sessions and in the evenings during dinner and drinks. Look below for a couple clips from one chat with Mario Cardinal, Donald Belcham, Dave Woods and John Bristowe.
Video: DevTeach Vancouver 2007 - Visual Studio 2008 Features
Video: DevTeach Vancouver 2007 - XNA
Finally, DevTeach would not be DevTeach without some kind of hijinx. Late on Thursday our old friend The Mad Mexican returned to pay a visit to Beth Massi during her Conquering XML with LINQ talk. Evidence of the strangeness that ensued has been documented elsewhere:
http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2007/11/29/117242.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2007/11/29/devteach-day-3-the-mad-mexican-strikes-again.aspx
Oh, and even more finally, here are some quotes overheard at the conference:
Data is just a happy side effect. -Dave Laribee
IT Pros are pissed because the best they get is a C for keeping the infrastructure running where Devs get A's for shipping. -Richard Campbell
Strippers are not scalable. -Name withheld to protect the not so innocent
No, I would not like a refill of my coffee. -Donald Belcham at Earl's after the Party with Palermo
Dude, put on a shirt. -Pretty much everyone who witnessed the Mad Mexican incident
Pass the buns. -Jeffrey Palermo