I had a great time at CodeCampOz this year. Geoff (Gringo) Appleby and I drove up together and had a really good chat on the trip.

Of the sessions that I really enjoyed, first up was Windows Workflow Foundation by Dan Green. This was a really good presentation and Dan obviously knows his stuff. Unfortunately there was only so much that could be fit into the hour and WF is a big topic. I’m keen to learn a lot more about this one.

Introduction to WinFS by Chris Hewitt was an interesting glimpse at the next file system to be released. I am looking forward to seeing how this new system goes when it is released. I think the greatest thing that will come out of this database driven file system will be some amazing file searching capabilities. Being database driven, this will no doubt mean many 3rd party searching programs will be developed.

Intro to Windows Presentation Framework by Joseph Cooney and Charles Sterling and More advanced concepts in WPF by Joseph Cooney & Deepak Kapoor were two great sessions about this cool technology. I think that WPF along with ClickOnce will be the two main technologies that push the industry towards smart client software rather than the current focus on internet based development. Out of everything presented, WPF is what I get most excited about for future development.

Intro to Vista Development Features by Darren Neimke was a very enjoyable session about what developers can expect from working with Vista. While Mitch attempted to start some fights in several of his sessions, this session by Darren probably sparked the greatest reaction from people. It seems that developers are not liking the security restrictions that they will face when developing with Vista. I am looking forward to developing on Vista and using the new UI controls being released with it. Doing .Net development on Vista with the next version of Visual Studio along with WPF, WCF and WF should be a really fun experience.

Introduction to LINQ by Mitch Denny was a good overview of LINQ and how this technology can be used. The parts of this session that I found most interesting were the discussions around the design and implementation of LINQ across the languages.

I found Services Consulting - Tips & Tricks by Dave Lemphers very interesting. I had spent about 45 minutes with Dave talking about similar topics before his session so it tied in really well for me. A lot of what he said was common sense and also included a lot of knowledge that has come out of his own experience (good, painful and otherwise). The participation from the crowd added to this session very well as people shared their experience and opinions.

Hacking Applications by Rocky Heckman was a definite crowd favourite. With a title like that it was destined for greatness. Everyone enjoyed this very insightful session about abusing programs. Unfortunately it is way too easy to find weaknesses in application security. I think this session was a great wake-up call for developers.

Apart from the sessions, the chance to catch up with people I met last year and to meet new people was awesome. Going out to dinner on Saturday and Sunday night was a great opportunity to catch up and chat to people. It was a pleasure to meet Dave Lemphers, Rocky Heckman, Grant Holliday, Daniel Crowley and Corneliu Tusnea (seriously Corneliu, where’s the blog?) among others. It was a shame that Bill McCarthy and Frank couldn’t make it this year.

Looking forward to next year. With so many exciting developments in the industry over the next 12 months, CodeCampOz will absolutely rock next year too.

[Updated: Corneliu’s blog is here]