Image via WikipediaThis was going to be a review of Visual Studio 2008. I went to a Launch event today in Charlotte, NC. Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Home Server 2008.
Before I tell you about the day. Let me start by saying I like Microsoft technology. The .Net development platform is AWESOME. Plenty of Microsoft haters exist but I am not one of them. I go to MSDN events very frequently. I went to the VS 2005 launch event. Visual Studio is a great environment. The .NET framework is well thought out and extremely powerful. Silverlight is AWESOME.
Today’s event was TERRIBLE. I mean awful. I spent the afternoon and should have learned all about the 3 new products. I sat through 3 sessions and a 4 minute keynote. I have no idea what is new in Visual Studio 2008.
The powerpoint slides were terrible as well. The whole afternoon was a train wreck.
The first Session was about tighter LINQ integration for ASP.NET. I think?
The second session was about Office development. There was a demo about creating custom ribbons for Office 2007.
The speakers were just plain bad. I know they want to sell software but what is new in Visual Studio 2008? How about 1 non-cluttered powerpoint showing a list of the new features.
I am NOT slamming Microsoft or its products. This was a POORLY designed and implemented developer event designed to market their products. It was a waste of my time.
At all the other events I have been to Glen Gordon has been one of the main speakers. Glen Gordon is a great developer evangelist for Microsoft. He was NOT at todays event and it showed. Wow did it show. The speakers read from a script at times, had no repore with the audience, and presented NO useful information.
I have always enjoyed Microsoft events but will not attend another without some assurance it will be better.
This ends my rant about the WASTE OF FREAKING time event I went to.
Franklin,
I'm Brian — a local developer evangelist for NC and SC and the guy who gave the first session in the afternoon. It was the one that covered Web Development in 2008, including LINQ, AJAX, and a few of the designer features.
To be honest, I'm concerned you found the event, the content, and the speakers (including myself) this terrible. It certainly concerns me since this, after all, is my job. To clarify a few things: Launch Event content is often a tad lighter than you may be accustomed to at other events. That's not to say it should be a “train wreck,” though.
As for Powerpoint, personally I keep slides to an absolute minimum and instead try to stay in VS, and at no time will I ever read from notes. Regarding my session specifically, I'd appreciate comments so we can make them more valuable. Although we collect the evals, by the time they make their way through the system and rolled up, sometimes it's hard to get actionable items. What didn't you like about my presentation style? Did you find having guests on stage to co-present useful, or distracting? What didn't you like about the AJAX demos?
Franklin,
Ok, I get it, you didn't like the event but you say “I have no idea what is new in Visual Studio 2008” and “presented NO useful information”. How much have you used Visual Studio 2008 going into the event? Did they NOT demo the new ASP.NET Javascript debugging features? How about the new ASP.NET Javascript Intellisense features? Did they NOT demo the new HTML/Design view split pane feature? Did they not demo any of the new ASP.NET CSS features? I wasn't there though I can't imagine they didn't touch on some of these in a Visual Studio 2008 launch event.
As someone who often presents at user groups, conferences, and so on I depend on the vibe I'm getting from the audience AND the evals submitted after a session. Your comments like “The speakers were just plain bad” don't really help anyone improve their presenatation skills so they can do a better job for you next time. Imagine being a chef and someone sends back a bowl of soup with a comment “the soup is bad”. You can't help wonder, did I use too much salt? Not enough? Maybe it wasn't warm enough. Did I over cook the pasta used in the soup? Should we have put in more vegetables? Maybe I used too much pasta… the questions go on and on. Send back a bowl of soup with a comment like “the soup wasn't warm enough and the pasta was undercooked”. NOW the chef can make adjustments to produce a better product for you next time.
Since you singled out Glen Gordon I'll tell you Glen is a friend of mine and I agree, he is VERY GOOD though I have to tell you I've seen him flip through a script or two just to be sure he covering all the content he came to present. 🙂 That by NO MEANS is a slam on Glen. We all do it to ensure we deliver the best presentation possible.
In closing, presenters always treasure feedback, both good and bad, because it either validates our approach and style or it points out areas where we can improve. What gets frustrating is when we receive general negative feedback because it tells us we need to improve but provides no direction on how to achieve that improvement.
Jim — Your points are well taken. If I am going to be critical the least I can do is be more specific. I do want to reiterate that I like Microsoft technology, Microsoft events, and the developer evangelists. In this case I just did not enjoy this particular event. In hind site my post should have been more critique and less rant. I will try to post again and clarify a couple of my specific issues. Also I attended with 3 other colleagues. We are all in agreement the event was a little off. In any case perhaps I can persuade one of the others to post some specifics as well.
Brian — I will post some specifics as soon as I can. Let me just quickly say that your presentation was fine just not very interesting to me personally.
I will get into this in a follow up blog post but if I was say a VB6 developer and was coming to the 2008 launch event to see if .NET was worth my while for my next enterprise application I am not certain I would have even been able to tell what LINQ is.
I just wanted a clearer description of the topics presented. If this was done and I totally missed it let me know.
Also If I am using 2005 why go to 2008 right away. What is the most have feature in 2008? Again if this was presented I just must have missed it.
Also I attended with 3 other colleagues. We are all in agreement the event was a little off. In any case perhaps I can persuade one of the others to post some specifics as well.
Franklin — thanks for the follow up, I appreciate it. You know, I know most people shouldn't necessarily think of the time that goes into prepping content for these events — I think any show worth going to should look “easy” — despite the time commitment.
Now, I'm going to level with you (and everyone who reads this): I wasn't a huge fan of the content for the day. VS2008 — at this stage — is a tricky product to have in a launch event. because it shipped (relatively) so long ago. I'm not sure if you're active in the local user groups/code camps, but we've done a bunch of install fests (where we gave away VS2008 Pro), and the previous MSDN Event (Nov-Dec time frame) covered most of this content in more depth.
So we're left in a tough spot: do you keep it high level with a marketing slant, where folks are bored having seeing everything before, or do try to dive in a little? The larger the event, the harder it is. I polled the audience to try and decide this on the fly, but there was such a mix of people — it's a tough call.
For example, one decision I made was to can about 3 or 4 marketing slides that talk about code metrics. I believe these are _very_ cool features of VS2008, however, I didn't think people would really remember them. Besides, code metrics don't work well in Web Projects due to the compilation model, and this was a web dev talk. So I decided to ask Scott Forsyth to give a 5 minute demo on IIS7. I thought it was a good idea, I thought it went off well, but you might not. (I tihnk Scott's amazing — if you haven't checked out his book Professional IIS7, check it out — the best book on IIS7).
As for cohesion and clearer descriptions. I agree. I actually did try to discuss that in my session (I can't talk much about the other sessions — I was in and out during the other sessions). I had a slide up of the agenda, then I had a slide about what we wouldn't be covering (like silverlight, MVC, etc.) But I do agree the event as a whole needed more cohesion.
RE: 2005 to 2008, why upgrade? That's a good one. I'm going to underscore that one in Raleigh — I think I glossed over some of the multitargeting a bit. In short — 2008 has much more refined IDE experience. The design surfaces work smoother (particularly for web, but also WCF and WPF). Because you can continue to target .NET 2.0/3.0 projects with it, it's finally nice to have only 1 tool installed. Of course, if you're working with pre .NET 3.5 projects, you don't get LINQ (for example), but you do get the better IDE experience and can being working with new projects as applicable.
Anyway, getting specifics is very useful and I appreciate the dialog. Although you know Glen as the MSDN guy, I do a huge number of events across NC/SC. Always feel free to come up to us — for example, if you didn't like the session, heck, let's make it right.
Franklin — thanks for the follow up, I appreciate it. You know, I know most people shouldn't necessarily think of the time that goes into prepping content for these events — I think any show worth going to should look “easy” — despite the time commitment.
Now, I'm going to level with you (and everyone who reads this): I wasn't a huge fan of the content for the day. VS2008 — at this stage — is a tricky product to have in a launch event. because it shipped (relatively) so long ago. I'm not sure if you're active in the local user groups/code camps, but we've done a bunch of install fests (where we gave away VS2008 Pro), and the previous MSDN Event (Nov-Dec time frame) covered most of this content in more depth.
So we're left in a tough spot: do you keep it high level with a marketing slant, where folks are bored having seeing everything before, or do try to dive in a little? The larger the event, the harder it is. I polled the audience to try and decide this on the fly, but there was such a mix of people — it's a tough call.
For example, one decision I made was to can about 3 or 4 marketing slides that talk about code metrics. I believe these are _very_ cool features of VS2008, however, I didn't think people would really remember them. Besides, code metrics don't work well in Web Projects due to the compilation model, and this was a web dev talk. So I decided to ask Scott Forsyth to give a 5 minute demo on IIS7. I thought it was a good idea, I thought it went off well, but you might not. (I tihnk Scott's amazing — if you haven't checked out his book Professional IIS7, check it out — the best book on IIS7).
As for cohesion and clearer descriptions. I agree. I actually did try to discuss that in my session (I can't talk much about the other sessions — I was in and out during the other sessions). I had a slide up of the agenda, then I had a slide about what we wouldn't be covering (like silverlight, MVC, etc.) But I do agree the event as a whole needed more cohesion.
RE: 2005 to 2008, why upgrade? That's a good one. I'm going to underscore that one in Raleigh — I think I glossed over some of the multitargeting a bit. In short — 2008 has much more refined IDE experience. The design surfaces work smoother (particularly for web, but also WCF and WPF). Because you can continue to target .NET 2.0/3.0 projects with it, it's finally nice to have only 1 tool installed. Of course, if you're working with pre .NET 3.5 projects, you don't get LINQ (for example), but you do get the better IDE experience and can being working with new projects as applicable.
Anyway, getting specifics is very useful and I appreciate the dialog. Although you know Glen as the MSDN guy, I do a huge number of events across NC/SC. Always feel free to come up to us — for example, if you didn't like the session, heck, let's make it right.