I had the opportunity to attend .NET Developer Days conference also this year. The event was organized in the same place as in previous years - EXPO XXI in Warsaw. Polish capitol looks nice in the autumn, so foreign conference participants had a good opportunity to have some sightseeing too.
Sessions
This year we had 4 parallel tracks. Each of them supposes to have its main topic like serverless, or AI, but in the end, it was a mix.
My main focus was on ML/AI topics this year. Peter Drougge had two nice sessions about Machine Learning. Also, session by Kevin Nelson was good.
Out Konrad Kokosa delivered a nice presentation called “DOD, ECS and Other Not So Obvious Techniques in .NET Ecosystem”.
Afterparty
The afterparty was in the same place as the conference. This year the organizers came up with an idea of a concert. I have to admit it went pretty nice.
Ask The Expert MVP Zone
This year the organizers created a special area where conference participants could talk with Microsoft MVP’s. I find the idea is pretty interesting. For example, you learn from a person’s blog-posts, articles etc. and finally you can chat with him/her in person! Just great.
I joined the zone for a quick chat. Jiří Činčura was talking about Visual Studio debugger shortcuts. He even wrote a blog-post about it.
I think that it was organizers came up with a very good idea coming up with the Expert Zone.
Other participants
During the conference, I meet many people. Some of them I knew from before.
The very impressive fact was that approximately 50% of the participants where foreigners. It means that the conference is very popular. Although, it is probably the biggest strictly .NET related conference in this region.
The .NET State interview
Finally, Grzegorz Kotfis had an interview with Łukasz Pyrzyk, Konrad Kokosa and me about “The state of .NET”. The session was recorded and streamed live on youtube. Below is the recording.
Summary
I feel really satisfied after the conference. It meets my expectations. I came back home with fresh ideas and new friends.