After hearing that there would be no PDC (Professional Developers Conference) in 2010, yesterday Microsoft announced that there will be a PDC. It will be held October 28 & 29 in Redmond on the Microsoft campus. It looks like it will be developer focused and will have keynotes from Steve Ballmer. I am torn on whether I will be going. If I can get a speaking slot then I will definitely be there. If not I am not sure. There are a limited number of seats available, the conference is very focused on a few topics, and of course, it is in Redmond in October. As I think about what I will be discussing with my boss I have come up with the following reasons to not go and also reasons to ask for permission to go.

Reasons not to attend PDC 2010

• The conference will be small so the chances for networking might be limited. If the Microsoft people come in, present, and then head back to their offices where you can’t ask follow-up questions a lot of the value of an in-person conference might be reduced.
• October in Redmond can be wet, rainy, and depressing (not a really strong reason but something I thought of)
• If I am not interested in the cloud or other topics covered then there might not be anything for me
• PDC used to be about the long term roadmap (3-5 years) the general topics seem to make it appear that this is more about current to 3 years out. This follows the trend of the last few PDCs but it still makes a difference to some people and their ability to attend.
• You may have already planned for or attended all of the conferences that your travel and training budget will allow.
• The web site says you can watch it live. If you can watch it from your desk you won’t have to pay for travel.

Reasons to attend PDC 2010

• The small conference will mean that you will have plenty of opportunities to ask questions and get answers from the people who developed the features.
• If the person you are talking to doesn’t know the answer it is possible that they can IM the right person and you can talk to them in a few minutes.
• Even though we like to tell ourselves that we can learn from watching the live stream the reality is that if you are not dedicated to attending the conference someone will come and bother you causing you to miss out on something important to your job.
• Networking. There is nothing quite like the feeling of being around a lot of really smart people and being able to learn from their experiences.
• Focused learning. Conferences have never been the same as a training class but when you go to a general conference there are usually lots of sessions and in any time slot I can find 2 or 3 that I want to go to and it becomes a balancing act. With a few topics covered it should be easier to filter down the good ones and come up with a series of good session in a track like cloud, mobile, or IE. Whatever you need to learn about you should be able to get a lot of sessions without the distraction of having a good session on SharePoint or SQL to pull you away from what you are there to learn about. (I guess that might be me and my learning style but I plan on looking at the sessions and trying to figure out if there is enough depth in any area to make this a strong argument.)
• Microsoft campus. I can remember the first time that I went to a training class in Redmond and was able to see the Microsoft campus where all of that good software comes from. Ironically now that I know more about the geography in Redmond I realize that the hotel I stayed in is in walking distance of our offices in Kirkland. It is sort of like a pilgrimage to the mother ship and a chance that not all developers get.