Unfortunately the tyranny of distance has kept me well and truly away from Microsoft PDC09 but it hasn’t meant I’ve had to miss out completely. Seeing so much exciting information released about new technology (which happens to be my favourite kind!) made me want to get what excited me down online.

Often times in the software industry you’ll hear statements suggesting that the quality of  the underlying software code is really not that important and what matters most is immediate term customer satisfaction, primarily achieved by delivering what they asked for within time and budget. This is usually a position put forward by the customer facing folks within the software industry who, in their defence, probably don’t have that strong a grasp on why code quality is important simply because they’re not living and breathing it. So let me give you an example.

Recently I’ve gone through a particularly intensive training program. This program has required a significant contribution of money, time and energy and although it has already been running for four weeks, has only just begun. The thing is though, its already made me a better programmer and the course is pretty easily accessible, in fact some people even stumble across it accidentally; get yourself a baby!