Business Casual

I recently attended a Microsoft Launch Event where they introduced and showcased some of their new development products. I got to see several demonstrations about Visual Studio 8 and .NET 3.5, which did look impressive. I also sat in one SQL 2008 at the end of the day, but I was useless in retaining knowledge at that point. Anyway, back to what I did retain. Debugging breakpoints and intellisense for Javascript is going to be a godsend for anyone that has to do any sort of complex Javascript work. The LINQ concept was interesting, but I think I would prefer to handle my queries still in stored procedures and such. I think the possible separation of duties into logic (WF) and UI (WPF) could be a great way to utilize developer strengths. Overall, there were some nice improvements. Good job Microsoft.

I would be more excited, however, if I thought I were going to actually be doing some of this type of coding soon. I have a similar vibe going with what I saw of Team Suite. There were some really nice concepts and abilities of that program. But after seeing the price, though, I know my company won't be getting it anytime soon.

But the highlight of the conference, as usual, was the free software. I scored a copy of Vista Ultimate SP1 (32 bit only), Visual Studio 2008 Standard and SQL 2008. All of the software was the more stripped down version, I know. But that's still way better swag than I usually get at these things.

And, don't worry. The conference also provided me with plenty of material for new Business Casual comics. I think the guys may head to a conference soon.