I spent my weekend attending Seattle code camp sessions. I learned a lot, but one of the biggest things I learned is how much I still don't know. My experience as a developer is limited I have yet to reach 2 years developing professionally and I am still in school currently working on my last quarter for my BS. I like to think that I am a good developer but speaking to people at the code camp is a nice ego check and I still have a long way to go before I can reach the status of elite alpha geek. My goals as a developer this year is to really dive into WCF and to study the code put out by the Patterns & Practices guys at Microsoft, specifically the Enterprise Library and Smart Client. What I really need is a chip I can insert behind my ear and just download the knowledge and experience I need, I cant seem to consume information fast enough otherwise.

One thing I would like to know is the process of how other people obtain deep knowledge of a subject not just an overview.  I am open to opinions please give me your 2 cents by Email Aaron@thesprage.com or leave a comment.

Seattle Code Camp on Jan. 26th from what I hear it is a little smaller than most but seems to have some good content. The schedule includes speakers such as William (Bill) Vaughn and Phil Haack. Most of the tracks covered will pertain to .Net but there are a few Java sessions as well.

The following sessions look interesting to me:
26th
Rethinking Unit Testing: xUnit.net
Data Enhancements in Visual Studio 2008
Windows Application Enhancements in Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Reporting
27th
An Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation
Black Belt DSA, building Duplex Agents
The Web via WCF
LINQ Overview

The using Statement is simply syntax sugar for a try finally block. If you instantiate an object that implements IDisposable you can make your code look cleaner with the key word using.
Example:

StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(filePath)
try
{
  sw.Write(someText);
}
finally
{
  sw.Dispose();
}

The above block works the same as:

using(StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(filePath))
{
  sw.Write(someText);
}

More Info:
MSDN