By Andy To, Application Developer
Having fun while working … what more can one ask for? That is the case for six developers from Geonetric, myself included. We were given an opportunity to attend the DevConnections Conference in Orlando during the midst of an economic downturn. This just proves Geonetric is willing to invest in its employees and continues to strive for excellence.
I learned a lot in Orlando, personally and professionally. Personally I have not been to Orlando before, and the timing couldn’t have been better-I was able to get away from the Iowa frigid weather. During our time there, we were able to secure a hotel close to the conference site. The scenery was beautiful; there’s nothing like the feeling of waking up to a fresh cool air in the morning. We woke up early and spent most of the day trying to go to as many sessions as possible to learn various new things that we could bring back to the office and share with our team.
I went to several sessions that introduced new features of Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0, and new toolkits. There are some pretty impressive features that we will use in our future release of VitalSite. I also attended sessions that highlighted some simple tips and tricks and more effective ways to accomplish certain tasks in Visual Studio.
Overall, it was a pleasant experience. One of the things that impressed me the most was when the presenter asked the attendees a question or asked the group if they’ve used a certain technology before. Most of Geonetric’s developers had our hands up. I thought that was pretty impressive; we are keeping pace with new technologies, which reassures us that we are on the right track.
