PDC 2009: Day 0 – It’s All About Software Quality

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After my 2.5-hour flight from Denver (The entire Denver contingent of Microsoft Developer Platform & Evangelism was on my flight) to Los Angeles at the you-know-what crack of dawn this morning, I was excited to arrive at my first Microsoft Professional Developers Conference.  In my 4+ years at Microsoft, 2 of which were in Sothern California, it’s hard to believe that it took me this long to finally attend.  But I made it!image

PDC doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, leaving today for “pre-cons” – workshops & team meetings.  For me, it was a deep-dive into the new QA/Testing tools coming out in VS 2010. 

My highlight topics included:

  • Test Case Management
  • Manual Testing
  • Action Recording
    • Turning an action recording into a Coded UI Test
  • Lab Management
  • SCVMM, TCM, and other fun acronyms
  • Query-based test suites
  • Requirements-based test suites
  • Test Impact Analysis
  • Fast Forward Manual Testing

It’s all goodness.  I’ll be honest – It’s a heck of a lot to learn as well, but these new capabilities are really going to hit home with a lot of people.  You just wait and see.  For those of your in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Denver – just let me know if you’d like a run through from me.

That’s it for today.  I guarantee today will be the lightest day of the week.  Tues-Thurs will be providing keynotes, tons of geeky sessions, and some great evening events along the way (my team is hosting a dinner tomorrow night, and there’s of course the Underground at PDC event/party on Wednesday)!  I’ll also try to post some thoughts on Twitter as well (or follow all of the PDC tweets here).