Spending a Saturday at Security code camp in Reston

A beautiful, crisp, fall Saturday with plenty of sunshine and fresh air. But I chose to spend it locked in a room full of about a hundred other people, talking about .NET security at the Mid Atlantic Security Code Camp hosted by G. Andrew Guthie.

If you have a chance, I would strongly recommend one of these, as the ROI for your Saturday is extremely high.

If you're like me, you've had your fill of the 'Mega' conferences like the PDC or TechNet or OracleOpen world. While some of these sessions can be great, many times you feel as if you're just being marketed too by a very large vendor. In fact, sometimes I think 50% of the people at these shows are just marketing and sales types, or, developers looking to party and have fun.

Enter Code Camp, no marketing allowed, no parties, no loud music or fluff - just developers giving up their precious Saturday to get together and speak about something they do everyday, and something that is very important too them - writing code. In this case - writing secure code.

All of the sessions were great, and of high value - with Microsoft presenters given last priority so as to encourage folks from the community to get up there and talk about what is important to them.