The last time I attended the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference was back in 2001, shortly after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Just over 6000 people made the trip to Los Angeles to learn about the latest technologies from Microsoft, as they were in the midst of rolling out the .NET Framework. They were pushing Hailstorm (I still have the free book they gave everyone with the Hailstorm API in it. I never did get a chance to use it though.). Everyone was excited about building new web services using .NET and C#.

A lot has changed since then. Vista and Windows Server 2008 are here, the .NET Framework has gone through three major revisions, Visual Studio has seen major improvements supporting team development, Intel has delivered multi-core processors and Microsoft still hasn’t delivered on the promise that was Hailstorm.

The preliminary agenda for PDC 2008 has some interesting sessions listed. Topics I am hoping to learn more about this year include:

• Silverlight
• Visual Studio 10
• Windows 7
• Multi-core Programming Techniques

Even though Bill Gates is now officially retired it looks like he is scheduled to speak at the conference as well. For a geeky college dropout with a whiny voice he does a great job delivering keynotes to developers. He doesn’t have the stage presence of a Steve Jobs, but he isn’t running Apple either. I look forward to hearing what his message for Microsoft developers is this year.

The dates for the conference are October 26 – 30, and the event is being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center once again. I hope to see you there.