You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, Program Manager in the Distributed Systems Group at Microsoft. This site is targeted at the Windows developer. Enjoy.
Saturday, Apr 18, 2009, 4:21 PM
DSL Developer's Conference
DSL Developers Conference
applied topics in domain specific
languages
April 16-17, 2009, Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA
Spirit of the Developer's Conference
The goal of the DSL Developer's Conference is to cut away all the unessential conference baggage and concentrate on why we're spending time at a conference in the first place -- the talks by industry experts and experienced practitioners. By doing so, we can keep your wasted time to a minimum. In fact, if you don't go away with your head hurting from all the new ideas you've heard, we've haven't done our job!
Summary
| What | 2 days of practical, applied DSL sessions from industry experts and practitioners |
| When | April 16th, 1pm-6pm (registration at noon), April 17th, 9am-6pm |
|
Where
|
Microsoft Research Building 99, Room 1919 14820 NE 36th Street Redmond, WA 98052 USA (on the other side of 520 from main campus) If you're flying, you want to target the Seattle-Tacoma Int'l Airport (SEA). |
| Cost | $0 for 1.5 days of sessions (half the bargain at twice the cost!) |
Sadly, It's Over
But you can see the videos and download the slides here!
There were countless blog posts and tweets.
Fabulous conference, folks. Best DevCon ever!
Site
This site, and all its contents, are copyright © 2001-2009, Chris Sells and Microsoft, Corp. All rights reserved. Please contact csells@microsoft.com with any comments or suggestions.
Monday, Mar 30, 2009, 7:38 AM
DSL DevCon: More Attendees Than Ever
This year's DevCon for DSLs has 25% more attendees than any other previous DevCon. In this economy, I'm amazed by this.
And it's not just people from the US or even the Pacific Northwest. Not only do we have people from all over the country, but folks are coming from Canada, the UK, Scotland, France, South America and one attendee, Tomas Petricek, a student at Charles University, is coming from the Czech Republic.
Luckily, as we slide into home, there are still a scant few seats left if you'd like to register, but be quick before they're all gone!
I so miss this conference. Why don't I do this more often?!
Thursday, Mar 5, 2009, 10:32 AM
Did you register for the DSL DevCon and not hear back?
Apparently even more people have registered for the DSL DevCon than I thought. If you've sent a registration notice and having heard back from me, then you aren't registered. Please register again or email me directly: csells@microsoft.com.
Monday, Mar 2, 2009, 8:10 PM
DSL DevCon: The 13th Talk
Magnus Christerson, the Vice President of Product Management from Intentional Software Corp, founded by Charles Simonyi, is giving the very last talk at the DSL DevCon, so make sure to stick around!
Also, seats are filling up FAST, faster than any of the other DevCons. Make sure to register now if you're coming! And don't forget, it's free!
Monday, Feb 23, 2009, 12:11 PM
DSL DevCon Speakers and Sessions Announced!
Apparently there is quite a bit of pent up demand for this conference, as there were more than 50 session proposals for only 12 slots and we've already filled half the seats with just pre-registrations.
Sessions include an M deep dive by Paul Vick, DSLs in Groovy by Guillaume Laforge, DSLs in Eclipse by Markus Voelter, a functional vs. dynamic DSLs smackdown by Ted Neward, a DSL for Pixel Effects from Adobe and last, but certainly not least, giving the keynote for the entire conference, the undisputed Duke of DSLs himself, Maaaaaartin Foooooowler-er-er-er!
Come to Lang.NET and stay for the DSL DevCon or just come to the DevCon, but whatever you do, sign up for the FREE DSL DevCon right now! All 5 of the other DevCons have sold out and I expect this one to be no different.
Thursday, Jan 15, 2009, 4:36 PM
DSL DevCon Pre-registration
There's been such a flood of DSL DevCon talk proposals that I've had a hard time keeping up (although feel free to let those nice folks in Eclipse, XML, Java and Unix land if you know who they are!).
Also, there's been a huge amount of interest in attending the conference itself and some folks even worry that the conference will sell out before they can register (the first five DevCons have all sold out and those cost money!), so they've been asking me to put 'em on a list. I'm still working out the logistics with the nice Lang.NET folks, but if you'd like to pre-register for the DSL DevCon, drop me a line and I'll put you on the list. It will be my job to make sure that anyone that pre-registers gets to go.
Wednesday, Jan 7, 2009, 4:53 PM
Call For Speakers: DSL DevCon
Are you interested in presenting a 45-minute talk on some Domain Specific Language (DSL) related topic? It doesn't matter which platform or OS you're targeting. It also doesn't matter whether you're an author, a vendor, a professional speaker or a developer in the trenches (in fact, I tend to be biased toward the latter). We're after interesting and unique applications of DSL technology and if you're doing good work in that area, then I need you to send me a session topic and 2-4 sentence abstract along with a little bit about yourself.
I'll be taking submissions 'til February 9th, 2009, but don't delay. Passion and a burning story to tell count twice as much as anything else.
And don't be shy about spreading this announcement around! I've got good coverage in the .NET and Windows communities, but don't know very many folks in the Java or Unix or hardcore modeling worlds, so if you're in that world, let those guys know! Thanks.
The DSL DevCon itself will be in Redmond, WA on the Microsoft campus April 16-17, 2009, right after the Lang.NET conference. Lang.NET will be focused on general-purpose languages, whereas the DSL DevCon will focus on domain-specific languages. The idea is that if you want to attend one or the other or both, that's totally fine. We'll have 2.5 days of Lang.NET on April 14-16 and then 1.5 days of DSL DevCon content.
Oh, and the cost for both conferences is the same: $0.
We're only accepting 150 attendees to either conference. Every one of the five previous DevCons have sold out, so when we open registration, you'll want to be quick about getting your name on the list.
Submit your DSL-related talk idea!
Thursday, Dec 18, 2008, 5:15 PM
Lang.NET + DSL DevCon = Joy
This year, we’re thinking very hard about putting the Lang.NET conference and the DSL DevCon at the same venue (the research center on the Microsoft Redmond campus) in the same week. The idea is that people interested in general-purpose language design and development can come to Lang.NET and the people interested in domain-specific languages can come to the DSL DevCon and for folks interested in both, the DSL DevCon will start right after Lang.NET, so folks can stay a little longer and come to both. Also, the conference chairs on both conferences will make sure to keep the content unique across the two conferences.
We think that’s a good way to make sure the conferences complement each other and helps keep people’s schedules sane and their travel costs lower. However, I have two questions for you:
1. Traditionally, Lang.NET is 3 days and a DevCon is 2 days. Because of the overlap of the content (languages), we were wondering if folks thought it would be a good idea to do 2.5 days of Lang.NET and 1.5 days of DSL DevCon this year instead, doing both conferences in 4 days instead of 5. What do you think?
2. If we linked these two events like this, will you attend just Lang.NET, just DSL DevCon or both?
Post your comments on this blog entry. Vote early, vote often!
Thursday, Nov 6, 2008, 1:43 PM
The DSL DevCon
I'm thinking it's time for another DevCon. I know it's been a while since the last one (in fact, I hear there was some kind of petition to have another one? : ), so we're long past due.
This one will be on all things data-driven, model-based and/or DSL enhanced. I'm thinking March or April of 2009. Who's interested?
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2006, 8:58 AM
Would anyone be interested in another DevCon?
I'm thinking about doing a DevCon before the end of the year (likely October) in a pleasant environment (likely the Skamania Lodge) on a topic that's *not* XML or Web Services based (we've done that topic to death). The soul of the DevCon will remain the same, i.e. to cut away all the unessential conference baggage and concentrate on why we're spending time at a conference in the first place -- the talks by industry experts and experienced practitioners.
If I organized such an event, would anyone come?
Friday, Aug 26, 2005, 12:31 AM
No DevCon This Year
Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
P.S. I imagine the DevCon come back in time, but it may well be a while...
Saturday, Oct 23, 2004, 6:36 PM
Sells on the SellsCon
125 attendees and speakers from 6 countries (US, Canada, England, Malaysia, Netherlands and Peru), 21 states and 60 companies, ranging from vendors to expert practitioners and even a few poor souls trying to learn XML. 24 hours of talks and events spread over two days. 44 bloggers and 247 blog entries about the event itself (not including warm-up to the event or my own blog entries), nearly all of which were over-whelmingly positive, including one eWeek piece and one entry from Tim Bray of Sun Microsystems that called me "a charming, welcoming, amusing guy." (I didn't pay him a cent, I swear! : )
In general, day 1 was dark and brooding, shouldering the brunt of the vendors who knew the technology inside and out and were feeling the pain of the downsides that they felt were holding them back. Day 2 was filled with hopeful stories of practitioners able to take what the vendors have given them, mix it with for their own secret sauce and really make it shine.
My very most favorite talk was Whitney Kemmey from the DOD with his unexpectedly captivating look at mixing XML with 10-year old technology and his endless submarine pictures, although Jeff Barr from Amazon continues to mesmerize me every time he takes the podium. Also, I really dug Doug Purdy's enthusiasm and forthrightness. Oh, and when Neetu Rajpal shut down Don for derailing her talk, I fell in love.
Inexplicably, the DevCon seems to just get better and better. I blame it on the community willing to listen to a variety of sources to hear what's really going on, some of it good and some of it that needs some work, whether it's from professional speakers or nervous amateurs, for-profit vendors or seasoned practitioners. Thanks for letting me participate.
Saturday, Oct 23, 2004, 6:08 PM
DevCon == 44 bloggers and 247 posts (so far)!
Here. Holy cow! I knew people liked the DevCon, but I've never seen a blogging response like this. I've found 44 separate bloggers and 247 posts related to the event itself (not counting the warm-up to the event). That's almost 6 posts/blogger or 2 posts/attendee! Good lord, but these were a prolific bunch...
Thursday, Oct 21, 2004, 5:45 PM
Applied XML Dev.Conf. 5 Web Sightings
Here. I got so tons of positive feedback during the DevCon about the talks, the venue, the format, etc, for which I thanked each person sincerely. However, the huge number of DevCon-related posts on the web, including a reporter's piece on DevSource, was overwhelming.
Tuesday, Oct 19, 2004, 6:40 PM
DevCon5 is Sold Out... Again
At 4:13:02pm, the Applied XML Developer's Conference has sold out (again). Eric Hayes, the VP of Development from You Software, Inc. was the last lucky attendee. Welcome, Eric!
Wahoo!
Monday, Oct 18, 2004, 1:51 PM
Coming into the final DevCon5 curve
As is always the case, tons of things are coming together at the last moment for the 5th DevCon:
- Received Tim Ewald's flight arrangements so that I can pick him up on the way to the conference
- Don "XML" is going to make sure that Tim Bray gets to the Portland Nerd Dinner and to the conference in time for his keynote address
- T-shirts on their way
- Proceedings printed and in my garage
- Maps printed so that I can find my way (haven't been there in years and years)
- Brothers Sells excited about the extra days off from school so that they can hang at the Skamania Lodge (although I'm pretty sure they're expecting to be able to play their Gameboys the entire time : )
- Microphones, podium, projector and project screens arranged for speakers
- Wireless Internet access and power arranged for attendees (and speakers)
- All but a handful of seats filled in our expanded space (8 seats left)
- Rory giving away a free conference registration on his site
Wahoo!
Sunday, Oct 17, 2004, 10:27 PM
Tim Bray Prepares For His DevCon Talk
Tim wonders whether he should let the 'softies attending and speaking at the Applied XML Developer's Conference have it or not. I say, give us both barrels, Tim!
Friday, Oct 15, 2004, 12:00 PM
Don at the DevCon on "WS-Why?"
Here.
Don sent his new talk abstract my way this morning:
"WS-Why? This talk will make sense of why various WS-* specs came to life and which ones every developer should ignore. Naturally, the size of this set is non-zero, however, it is not the entire universe. Hopefully, the audience will be left with a mental model for what to ignore going forward as the WS-* machine continues to move forward."
Personally, I've always wondered about the history of the avalanche of WS-* specs and to hear it from an irreverent horse's mouth should be tons o' fun.
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004, 12:09 PM
Rory Giving Away One Seat at the XML Dev.Conf.
Rory is giving away one seat to the Applied XML Developer's Conference. He's asking three questions before Friday and drawing from anyone that can answer all three. Question 1 and question 2 have already been posted.
There are still a hand full of seats left if you're like to purchase one.
Wednesday, Oct 13, 2004, 10:54 AM
DevCon5 Anticipation Reception for All
Here. If you're going to be checking into the Skamania Lodge for the DevCon by 7pm on Tuesday, 10/19, please join us for the Anticipation Reception for all attendees and speakers. If you decide to hang with the Portland Nerd Dinner crowd instead that night, I'll understand. : )
Tuesday, Oct 12, 2004, 9:13 AM
Don changes his talk at the DevCon
Here.
Don got a last minute bug to write on a completely different topic. I just got the slides this morning and they're different than anything I've ever seen from Don (which is saying a lot). The new title of the talk is "ws-islands" and while I have no abstract as yet, I'm still very much looking forward to the talk for the psychedelic effects of the slides alone (I asked him to be careful not to cause seizures in the audience).
There are just a few seats left, so register now or be prepared to sit this one out.
Tuesday, Oct 5, 2004, 9:31 PM
From Chris Sells to Sam Ruby
I can't get Sam to reply to my emails, so I'm hoping he'll see this post: Sam, can I get the status of your DevCon slides? They were due Monday. Thank you.
Monday, Oct 4, 2004, 3:12 PM
XML Developer's Conference Hotel Rooms Releasing
Here. If you haven't made your hotel reservation for the Applied XML Developer's Conference, Oct. 20-21 at the Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington (40 minutes from Portland Int'l airport), you'll want to do that today as the rooms we've been holding are about to be released to the general public. Also, if you haven't registered for the conference, you'll want to register now, as we've only got a few seats left.
Monday, Sep 20, 2004, 8:25 AM
DevCon Sold Out; Added A Little Extra Space
Here.
After only 5 weeks of registrations, the Applied XML Developer's Conference has sold out. With 4 weeks of registrations left to go, we've gone back to the venue for extra space. It's not much extra space, though, so if you want a seat, you should register expeditiously.
Tuesday, Sep 7, 2004, 4:53 PM
New XML Dev.Conf. Talk: XML in .NET 2.0
Here. Neetu Rajpal, a PM on the SQL Server team, has agreed to give us an overview of what's new in XML for .NET 2.0 and in design-time support for Visual Studio 2005 at the Applied XML Developer's Conference, October 20-21 at the Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington. While I was away enjoying America's version of a nude beach, we've surged to 80% full, so register soon.
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