Today's the last day of PDC. Things end at 2:30; I'll probably slide out even earlier, to try and beat the traffic home.
I'm leaving PDC with mixed feelings. On one hand, it was great to be a part of a giant crowd that was unabashedly enthusiastic about programming and technology; that attitude, combined with the best of the hardcore-techie sessions felt a little like being back in lectures at Berkeley. And I have to admit that a lot of the things that Microsoft is doing in Windows Vista do look really cool.
On the other hand, PDC is leaving me a little depressed. As previously expressed, Microsoft may be showing us this vast ocean of interesting stuff, but there's very little of it that I can actually use, since I'm working on a multiplatform app based on a class library that uses a frozen-in-time circa-1993 version of C++. I guess that it's a tribute to the effectiveness of Microsoft's marketing pitch that I've got an itch to go out the door and learn everything they've been talking up this week -- C#! .NET! WinFX! -- but at the very least, I think it'll be a good idea to plan on doing a lot more occupational reading, as well as taking some classes at UCI or Cal State Fullerton Extension, so that I can improve my craft and become conversant with the current 2005 state-of-the-art in C++.
 |  |  |
| PDC was big. Really big. | ||
Universal Studios: I forgot to mention our party at Universal Studios on Wednesday night. Microsoft reserved the whole theme park for the evening, leaving us free to roam in packs across the park. The only people in line for the rides were other PDC attendees; restaurants and fast-food stands across the park were wide-open, cranking out free eats for ravenous geeks as quickly as possible.
I think that Disneyland has spoiled me; my reaction to Universal Studios was a thoroughly unenthusastic "eh". If I'd actually had to pay to get into the park, and had spent hours waiting to get onto one of their rides, I think that I would have left a little upset -- I paid money for that?
None of the rides seemed all that impressive. The "Revenge of the Mummy" roller coaster was probably the best, but was way too short; at the point where I thought all right, now here's where things must really take off -- the train stopped abruptly and started to rotate onto a different track -- they opened a wall in front of us and ended the ride, meekly rolling back into the loading area. Other rides had similar problems with abruptly ending or holding back where they should have gone for it.
Posted by Kevin at September 16, 2005 08:22 AM