I was lucky enough to get a free trip to this year’s Tech.Ed from my Microsoft Student Partner link and this here is my wrap up from the trip. Enjoy!
Backgrounds
MSP programme is Microsoft’s selection of community active students who enjoy technology just as much as the next guy and like to share their knowledge when ever possible. Each year the top few are selected to attend Tech.Ed Developers to get a glimpse of the cutting edge of technology and share all that with their local communities. With this in mind, I left off for Barcelona with three other fellow MSPs and our ADE, Jukka Wallasvaara on a foggy sunday morning from Helsinki-Vantaa airport!
Barcelona
I usually don’t like southern cities that much, but Barcelona stole my heart! A huge city full of awesome architechture and tons of interesting places everywhere. The night life was one of the best I’ve seen in a while with really nice little bars in each corner. We had a lot of fun with the other MSPs and Finns every night, with only barely enough sleep from all the chika-chika action. The venue itself was HUGE with very impressive organisation that allowed us to really just enjoy every session and booths with a full stomach and enough Cola. Pictures tell a thousand words here, so please check my photos from the trip via my Flickr stream!
Technology
Ah, the main dish, technology. As any active stalker knows, I’m more of a producer than an actual developer and thus focused more on sessions that had to do with the Big Picture and the evolution of work flow with new products.
At this point it’s apparent to me that Silverlight 2 is one of the best things to happen for browser plug-ins since Flash. I’m not gonna list the exact feature set (use the Google, Luke) but imagine .NET as a coding framework, Expression Blend as the UI composition software and add some XAML to tie it all together. Easy, fast, powerful and most importantly based on open standards to be ported by anyone to any platform or to integrate with their own IDE. Sl2 seems like the first serious platform to create RIAs with, because it makes the whole process easy from design to publishing. No, simple JS/AJAX can’t compete with this work flow. There were some amazing sessions on live developing really good looking (as in visually pleasing and usable) prototype software.
Concerning C# 3.0, I really like the direction it’s going. As said, I’m no serious coder, but can certainly appreciate what they are doing. The key development is directed towards making C# simpler to read, thus reducing the time required for someone to distinguish WHAT the code is ment to do instead of HOW it is doing it. I know a lot of low level coders don’t like this lack of absolute control over every detail, but in my opinion managed code is simply the future, because it lowers the bar for new people to jump in and make their ideas reality. C# 3.0 is also the new language of XNA 3.0 so I can’t wait to actually get my hands on it while attending Imagine Cup!
Apparently not everything can be changed with technology, since the were still some sessions on ”Why Software Sucks”. User experience crafting, that is. It is the sad truth that most coders are really bad designers, but can’t see it themselves. Luckily (as if luck has anything to do with it) the new direction with Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight is going for XAML to divide UI more from code. The task is up for us to rid the world from bad UI design, so join the cause and ask a designer first before assumig anything!
I’m not gonna comment on Windows 7 yet, because not that much info is actually out yet, but Azure sure was a pleasant surprise. I case you didn’t know, Azure is Microsoft’s new online platform based around distributed .NET service hosting with a pay-as-you-play business model. I see it as an interesting way of publishing applications to the cloud and optimizing everything to withstand the wrath of the Interwebs. One can argue that for your average semi-successful web service you can’t get much advantage from the switch to Azure at this very moment, but I see it as an important step for preparing to the future way of remote computing and service providing to a wide variety of end user clients. The interesting point here is that these high-end developers have to have an in-depth understanding of how the Internet is actually built to really optimize their software for it.
Epilogue
All in all the whole trip was really incredible in too many ways to list. Having a look at the future of technology is really inspiring and makes you wanna replicate a lot of the cool demos they did with such ease. Now all that is left is to spread the word and actually develop something cooler than life!
- Teemu Haila, proud MSP
