Tech Ed, Conclusion.

VBTeam — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:14:00 GMT

Posted By: Alexandre Moura, Visual Basic QA, compiler

Well, back in the rain in Redmond after a waiting list scare at the airport - with my first TechEd behind me, it's time to recap:

The main thing I've brought from this exhibition is that most people are extremely interested on the work we've done and are doing in vb - The new features have been very well received, and we have quite a few people that can't wait for Visual Studio 2005 to come out.

More specifically on some of the features:
- Local Data was well received - I had at least one person looking for a way to have data stored locally more compatible with an sql database - local data will probably help. The general reaction was that this is a cool feature.
- Click Once seemed to be universally loved - while David did most of the demos here, everyone I talked to seemed to like the feature.
- Error correction surprised a few people - reactions varied from the "looks nice" to the "very cool"
- Surprizingly, edit and continue drew relatively lukewarm reactions (not that people didn't like it, but seemed less enthusiastic about it than for other features) - mostly it seemed to incite some envy on non VB programmers - not sure if the way I demoed it was at fault, but a couple of comments I got were along these lines: "this was already in vb6, right?" and "You guys got edit and continue back after we got used to not having it..."
- The new language features were also well received, although again some of the reactions seemed a bit less enthusiastic than I expected - Some people liked having the windows forms designer code hidden in a partial class, most people seemed to like the generic collection, but some people seemed to not care so much about operator overloading, for example. Again, maybe I just have some way to go in getting to be a good demo'er.

In balance, this was an extremely positive experience - I may have given the idea that people didn't care much about some of the features, but it's mostly a relative thing - there wasn't a single thing that wasn't well received, it's more the enthusiasm balance for some features when compared to others that surprized me. Also, on a personal level, this was also a great experience, getting to see how people appreciate the work we've done in VB.

Finally, I'd like to tip the hat to David Guyer and Jay Schmelzer for their work at the booths - they did an excelent job at demoing the new features and getting people excited about VB.

Alex signing out.

Tech Ed!!! three days later

VBTeam — Thu, 27 May 2004 03:20:00 GMT

Posted by Alexandre Moura, Visual Basic Compiler QA

This was my third day at TechEd - I think that finally I'm developing presentation capabilities - this is my first time at a conference, and I must admit I was a bit unsure about what kind of questions I'd be getting at the booths - Turns out I do know enough to man a booth, which was a nice surprise. The first two days went through at a hectic pace, but people have been enthusiastic about the new features of VB - I haven't talked or standed up for this long in years though - I'm getting a raspy throat and sore legs.

Edit and continue has been getting a lot of attention - VB users seem to feel like an old friend is moving back to town, and I think that a few C# users have a certain envious look whenever it comes into conversation. Click once also tends to grab a few “cool“s, as well as generics, which surprisingly not many people seem to have heard of.

Not to repeat David, but we continue to meet people who are surprised VB isn't gone yet - VB isn't going away. VB and C# are diferent languages, with different focuses - VB focus is on productivity and ease of use, and we'll continue to drive it there.

The conference itself has a few surprising points - The sails pavilion on the San Diego exhibition center is quite impressive, but add to that what I think are more than 1000 pc's under a single roof and it's more than capable of inspiring quite a few “what is going to happen to all these machines once the conference is over“ questions - and some wows also. Overall the logistics of organizing a conference like this are quite impressive - from catering to cleaning up after more than 10 000 people.

Note to self - next time, bring notebook while on cabana duty.

The Visual Basic Team : Alexandre Moura

Tech Ed, Conclusion.

Tech Ed!!! three days later