TechEd 2005 Experience

Holy Smokes.

That has to be the best way to describe TechEd 2005.  The people I have talked to already would take an entire blog roll alone.  Some of my personal highlights from the trip over the past 18 hours.  So many old friends that I don't get to see but once a year or so.

  • Ran into Todd Fine, RD for Atlanta.  Todd is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about Smart Clients and Avalon that I have met to date outside of Chris Anderson and co.
  • The Atlanta .NET Regular Guys called me asking me what there was to do.  I should be calling them!
  • Ran into Mark Dunn at the Connected Systems cabana.  Sorry I missed your talk, Mark.
  • Had several long talks with Mark Fussell, PM for WSE.  I can't wait to read the new version of the book, especially since you dropped the multi-page lists of API calls in favor of actual information.  And the book is thicker than previously... Mark promises a huge internal insight into XmlReader that you won't find in the docs.
  • A spirited talk about security tokens with Sidd Shenoy.  Look for some cool stuff on WSE 2.0 and the EncryptedKeyToken in WSE 2.0 to supplant Keith Brown's recommendation of securing UsernameTokens with X.509 encrypted tokens.  You still rely on certs, but the infrastructure implications could be drastically different, especially if you are using WS-Trust and WS-SecureConversation while caching the SCT.
  • Talking with Aaron Skonnard.  I was pretty impressed that Aaron recognized me by sight, having only met once before for the WS-Sushi dinner.  I begged a PluralSight shirt off of him and got a signed copy of his book to boot!
  • A spirited conversation about the Vietnam of OR mappers with Ted Neward.  We still disagree on some fundamental issues (I argue .NET is opt-in to complexity, while EJB is opt-out... Ted says you just don't opt out gently of complexity with J2), I always love to hear Ted's quote of the industry as it is today.  I would share the latest gem of the night but honestly forgot.
  • Ran into some of my customers tonight.  I would list them by name, but I think that is kind of tacky to say "this customer is doing business with us, even though they have not agreed to any press releases!"  Just my own hesitation there, and I am sure it is that hesitation that will be my eventual downfall as a potential sales person.  So, a simple shout-out to my Communications Sector account folks that I saw tonight.
  • Other folks I got to talk with (either briefly or prolonged) were DonXML, Kent Tegels, Andrew Duthie, Rob Howard, Scott Cate, Glen Gordon, Christian Weyer (I really want a SoapActor shirt, and not the sweaty thing in your suitcase!!!), Christoph Schittko (congratulations, sir!!), Robert Hurlbut (thanks for letting me pirate your Service Broker preso), and lots of Microsoft folks that I have gotten to pester over the past year but finally met. 

TechEd 2005 rocks.  Looking forward to PDC.