Today I took a bunch of students off to the Visual Studio et all launch event at Harrogate. There were around 14 of us, the largest contingent from any university in the UK I reckon. Kudos to Andy for getting us the tickets. I thought I knew all about VS 2005 - having played with it for a while, but there are a few things that I had missed out on, particularly in the SQL Server 2005 stakes amongst other places. The way that SQL server can now directly host web service requests is very interesting. The power of BizTalk when you are developing your business model, mapping XML schemas between different formats was really neat. I've seen it before, but the way that you can create test cases in VS 2005, even for things like web activity,and then apply thousands of that action, driven by a database of test data, and stress test your system with just a few mouse clicks was really impressive.

I was sat in amongst the students during a few of the presentations and even they (who are a traditionally hard audience to impress) were heard to perform the odd sharp intake of breath at some of the stuff which is coming down the tracks.

I've been to TechEd, and this was just like a mini one. The Microsoft experts were there (who else would send division heads down to meet up with the hoi poloi like this). What is more, this event was free to attend, and at the end you got to walk away with a voucher for Visual Studio and SQL 2005. Amazing. If this launch is not an amazing success it won't be for lack of effort. We had a great time, learned a lot and I even got a book for 40% off.