MSDN Event Format/Quality?

[Justin Cooke]

I'm getting ready to head to my first free MSDN event and wondered if any of you know the typical format. Specifically, am I supposed to bring my laptop with VS .NET loaded to allow for coding exercises or are these things really just presentations/lectures? Also, do you guys feel the MSDN events are worthwile? (I'll be finding out tomorrow, either way :)) Thanks, Justin

[Colin Angus Mackay]

Justin Cooke wrote: I'm getting ready to head to my first free MSDN event and wondered if any of you know the typical format. It depends what tracks you are going to. The last one I went to resulted in many many pages of notes because the information came at the audience so fast. However, the sys admins from my company that attended other sessions said it was relly boring because their sessions were aimed more at managers and there was little technical detail. Justin Cooke wrote: Specifically, am I supposed to bring my laptop with VS .NET loaded to allow for coding exercises or are these things really just presentations/lectures? You can bring your laptop - but you most likely won't need it during the sessions because there is no time to do anything. Basically, MS just shove a vast quantity of information at you (mostly through a marketing filter) probably in the hope that you'll go to TechEd. If you want to compare it to TechEd then I'd say that TechEd is better paced and there is time to try stuff out. If you want a quality learning experience I'd say pay for TechEd. But if you want to get a detailed overview on new (or forthcoming) MS technologies then MSDN is what you want. It is a pointer to what information you will need to get your job done.

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