Everybody else is talking about the PDC, so I thought I'd offer my opinions, for what they're worth.

I'm not at the PDC, and in fact have never made it further than a couple of VBITS events at Kensington Olympia. Yesterday I realised that I was never likely to be. Why? Because I suspect I'd always rather be somewhere else.

To take this year as an example, if I'd had the money to self-fund the trip, I would actually have used it to take a week's unpaid leave and spend some more time with my wife and daughter. Sophie has just turned two and seems to be growing up so fast that evenings and weekends just aren't enough; and with a toddler around the house, "quality time" with my wife is at a premium, so the chance to have some more would be just too good to miss.

If on the other hand my company had been willing to pay (and for all I know they might have been - I didn't ask!), I suspect I would have tried to "swap" the PDC funding for a week or two's "self-directed learning" with .NET. Though I have managed to get a pretty thorough grounding in most aspects through numerous half hours grabbed here and there, I have yet to pull it all together into a coherent whole. I have just the project in mind to allow this, but more on that in another post - I don't want a potentially good idea obscured by a PDC rant!

Also, from what I've seen of the activity in blogland (and on MSDN), I shan't be missing out on too much information either. Scott Watermasysk's Blackberry-driven coverage of the keynote was an excellent example of just how useful today's hardware and software can be.

Two things I will clearly be missing out on are the software and, of course, the opportunity of meeting so many famous and infamous developers from around the globe. However, most of my development experience has been at a safe distance from the "bleeding edge", which should to some extent mitigate the former; and as far as the latter goes, I'm afraid my family wins hands-down. Even when up against Band on the Runtime!