Tennessee developers: registration opened on April 1 for devLink 2009. devLink is a software development conference held in Nashville every year - this year it is scheduled for Thursday, August 13 through Saturday, August 15 and will be held at the David Lipscomb University campus. Like the big national conferences, devLink provides great session content by great speakers. But unlike the big national conferences, devLink limits attendance (this year to 800 attendees) and its non-procrastinator price is only $75 (goes up to $100 after April 15). Register now because it sells out every year.
devlink is organized by John Kellar: speaker, developer, blogger, and nice guy.
devLink is one of a growing number of "local" conferences being organized all over the country. In general, they are on similar footing as VSLive, DevConnections, and the SD conferences in terms of content, but lack the big-budget venue and marketing blitz. This appeals greatly to me because I dislike the travel expenses of getting to the conferences and because many of the national conferences slant session content toward the material being pushed by the big marketing departments of Microsoft, Oracle and the like. The "local" conferences that come to mind (without Googling) are devLink (Nashville, TN), CodeStock (Knoxville, TN), and CodeMash (Sandusky, OH). Check them out and attend the one that's most convenient to you.
If you know of any that I've missed, please let me know by posting here or emailing me.
