TechEd 2004: Impressions, prizes and talks
We have now passed the half-time of TechEd 2004 in San Diego. I have been busy in the SQL Server Cabana helping people (mainly XML, but also T-SQL, architectural advise etc.), giving an interview to Ken North for Dr. Dobb's Journal (I will forward the link once it gets put online), going out to dinners, preparing my presentations etc.
The conference seems to be getting good reviews from the participants, despite the occasional hick-up with the misprinted program (more on that below) and intermittent wireless issues (although it is much better than it was at PDC). The cabanas get good traffic, except at 7:30am (I had duty at 7:30 on Monday and the first people showed up at 8:50).
I was psyched to hear Steve B. mention one of my features (the XML data type) in his keynote, and I recommend that you come to my talk on the XML data type tomorrow (I promise, I will not show any underwear :-)).
I have received the two set of XQuery books (XQuery from the Experts, which I co-authored, and Michael Brundage's XQuery book) from Addison-Wesley, that I will hand-out as prizes for the best question as judged by the audience. Unfortunately, the book store at TechEd has neither book in stock (they claimed that the truck with them got lost), although it seems they are now going to get some. If you can't wait, just order it from the links above :-).
Here are the details on my two talks again:
Tomorrow Thursday at 1:30pm in Room 5AB, my first presentation, DAT319 (click on link to download a calender schedule), will cover the new server-side XML functionality in SQL Server 2005: The XML data type, XML Schema collections, FOR XML etc, and provide some guidelines when to use XML vs relational data.
My second presentation, DAT327, will be in the last session slot on the last day on Friday at 2:45pm in Room 9. I hope that the topic of XQuery will lure enough people to stay until the end :-). My co-presenter, Arpan Desai, and I will present an overview of XQuery and how it will be made available both inside SQL Server 2005 (my part) and in the .Net Framework (Arpan's part).
Note that the XQuery talk is erroneously printed to be happening on Thursday instead of Friday!