April 7 – 9 saw us make the trip down to sunny Brighton for SQL Bits, Europe’s largest SQL Server conference. The weather was amazing and the glorious sunshine added to the holiday atmosphere at the conference (the odd ice-cream on the beach didn’t hurt either 
).
Of course we weren’t there to have fun, but to work (honest gov’), and I delivered a session on ways to mitigate against the the ORM / Relational impedance. I’ll turn this into a blog post in the next couple of days so you can all enjoy part of the conference – if not the glorious weather. Being the conference it is, SQL Bits attracts the best speakers in the SQL field from all over the world, including the SQL Customer Advisory Team, who did a keynote session and a panel discussion session. Both of these sessions were highly informative and greatly appreciated by the audience. Other speakers attended from countries as far afield as the US, Australia, Holland and Israel.
Like all conferences, SQL Bits isn’t all about the sessions, but is an opportunity to catch up with old friends and to have a bit of fun. In my case I ran into Phil Winstanley who’ve I not spoken to since he joined Microsoft. Other attendees were able to relax and play around on the Xbox that Microsoft were kind enough to bring down to the event.
Between the great content and the great atmosphere, Sql Bits is one of the “must go to” conferences in the UK, so make sure I see you there next time, and if I do, don’t forget to say ‘hi’!