Blogging from Borcon

Monday, September 13, 2004 08:02 AM

So, I'm sitting right outside the convention center, ready for the first day (second, if you count the opening keynote, or third, if you count the preconference tutorials) of BorCon. Going to be an interesting day - quite a  few sessions I'd like to attend.

We've just finished breakfast, and the "General Session", which I'm going to skip, is about to begin. Here's what I don't get: breakfast was at 7:00. For a company that's committed to the developer, as Dale said last night, Borland should know that Real Programmers don't get up before 10:00 (at least).

I didn't get to the preconference tutorials. I would have liked to hear Danny's talk, but was too jet-lagged. Nick summarized it nicely, though.

The opening keynote was, frankly, one of the most boring I've ever heard. Dale came up with a new TLA, SDO (Software Delivery Optimization, I think), that's going to be Borland's next message after ALM. I guess this is about Borland's acquisition of ESTIMATE Professional. They also showed a long-term project management concept which I (and anyone I talked to later) didn't get at all.

The coolest part of the opening keynote was probably the awards (oh, and the dancers). Dale gave one of those big checks that photograph really well but are probably not easily accepted at the bank - $1,000,000 to Carnegie-Mellon. The President's Award went to Allen Bauer, who made the obligatory "wow" expression upon seeing the check. Good for you, Allen - well deserved.