a Microsoft Technology Roadshow
been to a Microsoft Technology Roadshow last Friday (20-02-2006).. despite Venki's suggestion that there won't be much to learn, I took a day off to attend this one.. but I really do regret that decision.. a whole damned day wasted! left the hall feeling ridiculous about the whole damned session..

what went wrong? well, maybe I should rephrase that to be 'was there anythin that went right?'.. can't remember a thing that was right, but with exception of the food, which was more sensible than that in the Visual Studio 2005 Launch Tour..

there were two parallel tracks.. one for the web developer and the other for the mobility developer.. I chose to attend the mobility track coz I xpected to learn somethin form the session.. there were 3 presentations wholly.. two before lunch and one after that.. first two basically covered Symbian vs .NET for developin mobile apps.. some general awareness stuff..

I was late to the first presentation, but dint really miss a thing.. that guy was explaining about some features like a Windows CE mobile (Tablet PC etc..) being able to sync up with a Microsoft Exchange Server and some cool features like getting notifications about ur mails etc.. as n when ur Exchange Server receives em.. honestly, that's not the coolest tech I'd like to hear abt.. it's fairly standard, so please don't bug me explainin how it works.. show me an actual application demonstrating how to use that thing.. anyone with half-a-brain could use the net n find out how it works.. it's definitely not worth a presentation.. in fact, anyone wit half-a-brain could also find sample apps on the net, but then that's where I'd like to see the differene.. I usually xpect to learn some tips/tricks form the demos they'd give on stage.. somethin like that's not available elsewhere, or at least the approach, coz it's pretty difficult to find a thing that's missing from the net n present it here :D

next presentation was a lil interesting, but got a lil annoying later.. it was the usual Microsoft vs the-best-rival-to-Microsoft-technology thing.. in fact, even the previous one was Symbian vs .NET, but let's leave it there.. this one was J2ME vs .NET.. hmm.. it's not that I hate .NET/Micrsoft.. in fact my current project is an ASP.NET app.. but then, there should be limits to where you draw the comparison.. the competitors were J2ME with the JTWI standard (which endorses MIDP 2.0 with CLDC 1.0) vs .NET CF.. hmm.. for me, not very sensible.. I dont wanna elongate this entry getting down to details.. but in short, there were some valid points.. but the whole thing was a futile attempt, justifying the existence of .NET CF for mobiles and tryin to convince us of it's superiority over J2ME/JTWI..

I was tired already.. they were so boring.. I'm a dev guys and I came here coz u labelled it a Technology Roadshow with a track for the Mobility Developer.. show me some code! I can read the reviews and get to kno more abt the features n evrythin.. but don't waste my precious time shootin bullshit at me.. I'm here xpectin somethin more technical.. not for ur product review..

I thought I shud leave, but before leavin I thought I shud xpress my opinions to one of the presenters.. I told pretty much the same to him (well, same words wrapped around with some politeness that is :D ).. he said the initial presentations were to create awareness.. the one after lunch would have some code to demonstrate.. so I decided to stay for the latter part..

but this one happened to be a worser bullshit.. it was called the storage side story.. the demo was xtremely frustrating.. at least for me.. he gave some intro abt the SQL Server CE, during which I had a nice nap :D.. for the demo, he created a new Mobile application.. imported a Northwind DB, SQL CE version.. dragged and dropped a table from there to the form, which became a DataGrid.. huh.. who was the demo for? for a 10 year old kid?

well, I'm not much xperienced when it comes to Mobile app development.. but the others in the room seemed to be from the stream.. when I feel the demo was bullshit, do u think the demo was worth anythin for an xperienced pro?! still, I held on to my patience, tellin myself that there'll be somethin worth learnin comin up.. that this demo was just for the complete novices.. convincin myself that the demo was intended to start off simple.. then the presenter came to the last slide, givin some links, includin one for the great demo that was just shown!

for the lack of stronger words, I'd just say that I was simply pissed off! a leave wasted for no reason at all! this happened to me even in the VS.NET 2005 Launch Tour.. I xpected somethin big, n all I got were some nonsense presentations.. their explanation for that was that it was merely an awareness event.. well, granted.. but what abt this Technology Roadshow?

I've decided never to attend another Microsoft Technology Roadshow again.. neways, my only request to the event organizers is to brand their events properly and make their intent very clear.. if you'd please call your marketing events as just that, instead of branding them Technology Roadshows, I'd be glad to stay away from those, n you'd be helpin many like me.. well, thanx in advance if any of u happens to consider my request..