Where are all the developers??

I think David Lemphers might be on to something when he compares the world of 5-10 years ago in terms of getting your hands on developer content.  

I can remember a time when if you didn't have a physical copy of MSDN (when it fitted on 1 or 2 CD's!), you were severely handicapped and one or two magazines filled the gap. Those same magazines are much less relevant today. I've been a MSDN journal subscriber for some time, but I can get most (if not all) of the articles online now.

As developers, the support we receive online is at an unprecedented high… if we’re sick of plowing through...

David L's comments are valid for all (potential) attendees. But the real question you raise, Frank, is why the disparity between IT Pros and Devs?

I think for some of us Devs at least, it's <b>Cost</b>.

The IT Pros & BDMs and some Devs will be working for larger organisations where the boss will pay out of the training budget. For us little guys (free-lance Devs and small ISVs) it comes out of our own pocket.

I don't suppose you have statistics on who is paying their own way? Or who works for an organisation with less than 5 employees?

Cheers -- Mike

One of the biggest problems I see is that all of the Tech Ed U.S and PDC conferences generally release all of their content online. Sso for a developer who cares less about networking and the social aspect of it. (Except some devs who love it), the Tech part of Tech.Ed becomes less relevant.

You have two types of developers, the 9-5'ers who do it for the work/cash, and the night coders who will go home at the end of the day and learn because they want to know or just for the fun of it.

Most of the developers are probably doing just that - developing, earning their daily crust! Given that almost 3/4s of the attendees are managers, that might give some answer as to why their developers aren't going...

I'm not planning on attending this year simply because the perceived value isn't there, last year it was VS.NET 2005 and .NET 2 which my employer had no problems with, Vista isn't going to start being an issue for us for at least another year, we have no customers at the moment who are even thinking about Vista (we are an ISV with lots of gov clients) so it's a hard sell to an employer. I'd say that there would be a good chance that next year I'd go.

I think Dave's post hits all the right marks. Compare the ozzie IT Pro online & user group community to that of the developer community and what do you see? Many more developer user groups, blogs, vendor reps (how many developer DPEs are there compared to IT pro DPEs?). That takes away so much of Tech.Ed's value 'cos you can network pretty well at your monthly user group meeting, keep up with what's what on a million different blogs, stay in touch with the national community on the Stanski list, and then meet everybody for free at Code Camp Oz once a year. That leaves Tech.Ed looking like a pointless junkett to many people I suspect. I'm not one of them of course but I agree that Tech.Ed needs to evolve if it really wants to be all it can.

I am heading to tech ed this year. But I have to say the reason I am going is because my company is flying me over (from perth) and paying for hotels/registration/everything.

I am extremely looking forward to it, never been to one before.

My primary function is a BizTalk developer, so I am hoping to get to the deep dive session there.

simcof@iinet.net.au

I was looking forward to seeing some content which was covered at Mix 06 to be included and ideally extended upon at Tech.ED. Unfortunatelly this didn't happen.

As someone pointed out, small developers have to really justify the expense. I am guessing the majority of developers in Australia actually fall into the small company, independent contractor bucket. I certainly know more people working as freelancers than permaments. For any freelancer 3 days at a conference mean $3000 (and up) in lost income as well as $1900 to attend the conference (assuming you are based in Sydney). Some people might prefer to put the money towards a proper training course rather than a "talk fest".

From a networking point of view I actually find it more benefitial to go to conferences in other industries. You are more likely to find new customers there (and actually learn how potential clients think) than at a technology conference.

To be honest about 8 years back MS used to have a web developer specific area on MSDN which was terrific. At that time Tech.ED had some great sessions for web focused developers. It felt like Microsoft was inovating in the web arena. Then IE became the browser of choice all the web developing stuff was lumped into MSDN. I think at that stage Microsoft lost interest in the web until a little start up called Google suddenly became next best thing to sliced bread (or at least that's what they are telling everyone).

Fast forward 8 years. Microsoft is hungry again because for the first time in a long time they are facing some serious competition but I am straying away from the subject.

Frank, have you guys thought about splitting Tech.Ed into separate events with community specific focus (eg. Tech/IT Managers and Decision makers, Web people, server and desktop application developers?

Maybe that's the answer rather than the all you can eat approach.

Hi Frank,

I just went over to the Tech.ED site to see if I might have missed something which would be worth checking out. So here some additional feedback for future Tech.Eds

1) Provide some session details: I couldn't find a detailed description for specific sessions at each track. I usually want to know if there are enough sessions of interest before I register for a conference.

2) Offer one day only registration: Some people (ie. myself) might interested in going to a single day because of a specific session or keynote speaker. The added benefit you get is that you are attracting people which other might not go at all. If they like the conference perhaps next year they will sign up for multiple days.

Just a thought...

I would take a guess that most .NET developers are contractors these days.

That means that they have to pay for TechEd off their own hip pocket.

Well I am going...but cost was a big factor.  Luckily I got in at the early bird stage.  But when you have to take 3 days off of work + ticket + flights + accommodation it adds up to an expensive couple of days.  I'm sure it'll be worth it though.

I like the suggestion of paying for specific days but that I think that'd only work for people in that city?

I have to concur with the majority of the comments above:
i) time/cost. I run a small ISV so I end up paying for it twice: the cost of going (entry fee, flights & accomodation) and the cost of no income.
ii) as mentioned before, there's a wealth of information out there; whitepapers, webcasts, podcasts, etc. that provide an impressive amount of high quality material. I can get access to this info 24/7 and so it fits in with my schedule.

Last week, I wrote a post Where are all the
developers??
This generated a
load of comments, and...

There have been recent discussions surrounding the relevance and structure of Tech.Ed Australia and whether...