Twenty-Five Things about SD West 2009 … Or I’ve Spent Too Much Time on Facebook this Year

Last year, when Marketing first suggested we set up a Facebook group and a Twitter account for SD Events, I was skeptical. Isn’t that just for college kids, I asked. When they informed me that I had to join Facebook and Twitter, I was downright annoyed, but complied (eventually). Today, even my inner luddite has to admit that social networking sites have hit a critical mass—and are one example of the radical ways software development has changed, in a very short time, the way we live, work and communicate with each other.  SD West has been about how software changes our lives since its inception—and 2009’s event is no exception.

So, in honor of change and–and all those folks that have tagged me to write one of those “25 things about me” notes–I offer instead “25 Things You Can’t Miss at SD West.”

1. Uncle Bob’s keynote on March 9 at 12:15 PM. Extreme Programming may be 10 years old, but it still attracts controversy and debate. Has agile really improved the way we create software?
2. The “Is SOA Dead?” panel. Was SOA ever more than just an acronym? Has it been supplanted by mashups, BPM, SaaS and Cloud Computing? Moderator Christian Gross and panelists Juval Löwy, Michèle Leroux Bustamante get bottom of the controversy on March 9.
3. The XP Card Sharks. Join Industrial Logic’s Joshua Kerievsky for a couple rounds of XP War, XP poker and eXPlanations on Monday night.
4. Better Software, No Matter What. Scott Meyers’ full day tutorial on improving software quality is a can’t-miss on Monday.
5. Drink beer and eat pizza while finding out about life inside LinkedIn Engineering at Monday night’s Birds-of-a-Feather gathering.
6. Get around the Scrum pyramid scheme. Learn about the agile method, using the agile method in Mike Vizdos’s half-day tutorial on Tuesday, March 10.
7. Tuesday’s Booth Crawl through a jam-packed expo floor, featuring platinum exhibitors IBM and Intel, along with a host of other leading software development companies.
8. The most comprehensive and complete C++ training available anywhere, taught by such C++ Gurus as Dan Saks, Stephen Dewhurst, David Abrahams and more…
9. Intel Chief Software Evangelist James Reinders outlines why you need to go parallel in his keynote on Tuesday, March 10.
10. IBM’s Scott Ambler and Terry Quatrani debate agile and traditional software development in their Wednesday afternoon keynote.
11. The 19th Annual Software Development Jolt Awards, March 11 at 6:30 PM. Who will win that Lucite-encased can of soda this year?
12. Wii’ve got game. Don’t miss out on the Conference Attendee party on March 11. It’s your chance to compete against your peers at Rock Band, Wii Bowling, Golf and more.
13. The Dr. Dobb’s Excellence in Programming Award:  Who will join Dr. Dobb’s Editorial Director Jon Erickson on stage this year?
14. Your chance to grill the tool vendors: 90-minute technical sessions presented by Coverity, OpenMake, SmartBear, Replay Software and more on Wednesday and Thursday.
15. The SD West Developer Bowl: Four teams enter, one team leaves victorious. Will the IBM team successfully defend their championship on March 12?
16. My keynote introductions. Last year an attendee helpfully wrote “Tami must have many talents, but introductions are not one of them.” Come see me prove him/her wrong—or fail miserably.
17. The State of the Mobile Union:  Mobile Connect Conference Chair David Berlind interviews Evans Data John Andrews and Canaan Partners’ Maha Ibrahim on Thursday, March 12.
18. Meet your software development heroes face to face at lunch, coffee, parties, BoFs and more.
19. Prizes, surprises. Don’t miss out on your chance to win a Wii and other fun gifts in our Passport to Prizes on the Expo floor.
20. End-to-end training in .NET 3.0 – 4.0: How-To’s, tools, technologies and case studies.
21. Get beyond the Web 2.0 buzzwords with in-depth sessions on Web 2.0 security, Comet, Ajax, jMaki, Flex and more.
22. Tutorials and sessions on the “DD”s: The ins and outs of Test-Driven Development, Behavior-Driven Development and Agile Model-Driven Development.
23. Get the skinny on Spring from the framework’s creator Rod Johnson on Friday morning.
24. Learn a new language: Scala, jRuby, Clojure …
25. Discover the entire software development enchilada. Five days, 160+ sessions, 13 tracks. There’s something for everyone.

Done!  And I didn’t even scratch the surface.

Hope to see you at SD West!