It looks like this year is going to be pretty good. They’ve expanded the program. If you’re not going, you should consider it.
Personally, I’m pretty excited. I’m presenting our build and deployment process using Visual Studio Team System Database Edition. I’ve got the first half of the presentation down cold because it’s how we’ve been doing our deployments for a couple of years now. The second half concerns me a bit. I’m showing the new release that works with SQL Server 2008. Unfortunately that new release isn’t done and I keep having to update my code and slides as the new versions come out with different functionality. I’m more than a little bit nervous about that part of the presentation. I wish there was a way to bounce it off Gert Drapers before I gave it. Maybe I’ll fire off an email to him after they finish coding. I’d do it sooner, but I’m not about to distract the man that’s making a tool I use so much.
Speaking of which, the new version, CTP 16, has a great addition. There’s an executable, I assume distributable without license, that allows for installs of VSTSDB projects without having a full Visual Studio install. This tool is going revolutionize, again, database development and deployment. You have to love it!