Great Time at TechEd

I had a great time at TechEd last week.  I loved all the people I met and talked to.  I talked to a bunch of potential authors for the MSDN Web Services Developer Center and generally had a great time in the evenings.

I was quite happy with the level of talks on developing Web services.  I think it is a key sign of the maturity of the Web service platform that intracate topics such as complex schema design for Web service messages was one of the focal points of the Web service track.  You don't have discussions like this for newer platforms.  Schema design is particularly interesting because as a topic it has been around almost as long as Web services (as opposed to things like policy or reliable messaging).  However the Web service world is only recently understanding the implications of the subtleties in the spec.

I also have to say that even as a middle-aged guy who generally doesn't think a whole lot about newer music, I REALLY enjoyed the concert at the attendee party.  Particularly Smash Mouth who interacted with the relatively small crowd a lot more than the Wallflowers did.  Plus I was in more of a dancing mood so Smash Mouth wins the "beat you can dance to" award.

The next conference I will be attending: Applied XML DevCon.  You won't want to miss it.