Aussie DevCon 2009 Wrap-Up

Well, it’s been a little over a week since I’ve back from the land Down Under. I think that the jet lag is finally over, and I wanted to share with all of you some thoughts about the conference.

First and foremost, I was to thank Jen and Geoff Spillane, Margaret and Ken Wragg, Maury, and all of the other Eden locals who once again truly manifest what the word HOSPITALITY really means.

Thanks to my colleague Pierre Tremblay, who endured the long plane ride over, fought off the flu that was circulating among some of the attendees, and delivered some interesting and useful training that targeted the Clarion.NET product.

Thanks also to Robert Zaunere, who also endured one of the worst flights ever (I’ll let him tell you) and delivered a marvelous demonstration of the Clarion.NET application generator and all things LINQ.

The attendees were treated to an early release of Clarion 7.1 – this was the build that I was using all week in the training. It’s intent was to reinforce the training and allowed them to get a first hand look at many of the new features of Clarion 7.1. Since that time we have added even more fixes and features, and with a little more testing left to do we hope to have it in all of your hands very soon.

It looks like I have a lot of documentation ahead of me, as Bob Zaunere introduced the LINQ to FILE provider and the many new methods behind them. You can read more on this in another blog on this site. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot more to come!

Yes, we did see some whales up close and personal at the Whale Watching cruise. One whale came right up to the boat and circled it 4 times as he was as curious about us as we were of him. It was amazing to see such a gentle but huge creature in the wild. It was definitely worth the trip.

On the way back to the states, we stopped for one night in Sydney, and yes, I found a ten pin bowling center in Darling Harbour. The score wasn’t great, but just the act of being there was very special.

If you missed the conference, you missed a good one, but the guys at Clarion Live did a great job of keeping the rest of the world connected, and plans are in the works to make the conference available on DVD very soon.

Looking down the road, we hope to have our next US Developer’s Conference in 2010 soon after the Clarion.NET Gold release. Probably in Orlando in the second quarter if everything moves ahead as planned. It’s long overdue and something that we are all looking forward to doing.