March 18
Lots of good things happened at the 3rd annual ESRI Developer Summit. First, the evolution of this Developer summit is amazing. From ~600 to ~1,300 in 3 years... good idea we had at the first .NET SIG :)
Plenary was good - lot’s of Kool Aide about ArcGIS 9.3 and the Open-ness of the ArcGIS System with online everywhere.
The thing that stuck me the most was the AMAZINGLY cool ArcGIS Explorer that is coming in the release after next - I think they said Build 600 - talk about setting the bar on UI experience - lookout others (you know who you are).
Although the ArcGIS JavaScript is getting alot of hype as the “new kid on the block”, I believe the real story is the new REST End point. The JS is cool and all, but the Extension JavaScript API’s working with Google and Microsoft are a better story...
Rex did an awesome job showing off the 9.3 Web ADF - it has a lot to offer at 9.3 and I am sure “most” folks will be pleased with the amount of work the team has put into making it all it wa hyped in being.
Another key point I would like to highlight is that the code gallery is now REAL - I talked this up almost 5 years ago at the first .NET SIG (James Fee can atest to this) and it is no finally coming to light.