Conference levels (100-400) - what do they mean?

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With Embedded Systems West (April 14-18), and TechEd Developers 2008 (June 3-6) rapidly approaching we will be publishing the list of sessions and labs that will be presented at each conference - you may have seen that conference sessions get tagged with a level (100-400), but what exactly do the levels mean, and how much content at each level would you expect to have at an event?

I snagged the following explanation from Jeremy Mazners blog

<Added by Mike>

  • 100 level (Intro level content, could be delivered by "marketing") smile_regular
    • No previous knowledge of this subject required
    • May contain roadmap and general overview of product features
    • May or may not contain code/demos

</Added by Mike>

200 level (generally anchor and overview sessions)

  • Focuses on broad technology overview
  • Emphasizes capabilities, scenarios and value
  • Simple code samples to make a point

300 level (generally scenario sessions)

  • Focuses on demonstrating how to implement a solution
  • Detailed code samples and architecture to show how it all fits together

400 level (generally deep technical internals sessions)

  • Focuses on internals, the how and why
  • Emphasizes internal architectural considerations and decisions and how they impact real-world usage
  • Code samples that illustrate the behavior of the component

Or, you could look at the posting by John Howard that explains the session levels in terms of Chocolate.

- Mike