PDC05 Birds of a Feather Voting

This year you can cast your vote for the Birds of a Feather sessions which most interest you (see CommNet). Previously I had voted for only two, but with the voting period extended for a few more days, I selected a few more. These are the candidates I voted for:

• Your Favorite Design Patterns
  The idea of this session is to give the audience an opportunity to talk about their favorite design patterns in .NET, and how people can benefit best by using them. The patterns do not have to fit the designs mentioned in the "Gang of Four" book, they just have to be something that can be used for day-to-day problems faced by developers. The patterns should focus more on increasing developer productivity than just be cool.
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System -- Blessing or Anathema?
  Visual Studio 2005 Team System clearly plays a role in increasing the productivity and predictability of software development through the careful integration of tools and process. There are many positive aspects the product suite professes that may very likely herald a new era of efficiency for software architects and developers. Is all what Team System promises a good thing? Are there drawbacks to this approach?
• SQLCLR - Best Practices
  SQLCLR integration creates great opportunities to develop and define your own datatypes, aggregates and functions. But these opportunities also have a dark side, so it is very important to discuss principles of architecture, deployment, versioning and especially defining/checking the compliance to SQL - Standard rules of custom datatypes and functions.
• Mort's guide to the PDC
  What does this PDC mean for Mort? Is it a .NET PDC (i.e., will it change your world) or is it a Hailstorm PDC (i.e., much sound and fury, signifying nothing)? Come discuss the impact of Microsoft's latest technology with other Morts. You can bring your Elvis and Einstein friends, if they promise to behave themselves.
• Internationalization of Intranet Applications for the Globally-Oriented Company
  Discuss ways to make applications return "smart" information when dealing with multiple nationalities that need to be viewed at the global level as a common entity, but at the regional level as the local nationality. Discussion could include currency exchange conversions (how to implement, when to convert), combining data from different systems, and more.
  
• Future of the Deep Coder
  A recent article proclaimed that deep coding is on the decline with little chance of revival. The days of locking yourself in a room and exclusively coding are slowly fading. The industry seems to be moving toward systems driven by "software connectors" allowing users to customize programs to their needs with less developer intervention. What is the future of developers who thrive in the depths of code? How scarce will jobs for deep coders become? How will these developers adapt to a more modularized and component based future of software development? And, finally, is the future of software going to become a plug-and-play proposition where the need for deep coding is gone?