I attended the Tampa Code Camp this past weekend. It was located at the Kforce Building in Tampa, a very nice facility, good parking, and only a couple blocks from downtown Ybor City (lots of stuff to do) - this is also where the Tampa SQLSaturday will be held in January 2009. Attendance looked to be around 200-220, which seemed to be down somewhat from previous years but still easily a success.

I did a presentation on how statistics affect performance in SQL. The 'room' I was assigned was one half of the cafeteria, another presenter had the other half. Looking at it I was expecting to have everyone struggle to hear/understand, but the layout brought the attendees in closer than usual and the noise turned out to not be a factor. If anything, having attendees within normal conversational distance made it less formal and more fun.

Only a single SQL track (not unusual) but I think we (sql speakers) probably need to have a better focus on what SQL content we do at these events. Just as at any of these events the skill levels and interests vary widely, but I think they fall into two main groups; those that don't have a DBA and so need some coaching on routine DBA tasks (not uncommon to find out they do zero index maintenance), and those that want to understand performance/security together. I think SQL injection should just always be on the agenda!

As always I had some good conversations. Some related to PASS that I'll post separately, I talked with Jonathan Kehayias about career plans & consulting, Bayer White  (new blog URL) has taken over the Jacksonville .Net Users Group and the related Code Camp so we talked about running user groups and events, talked with Pam Shaw of the Tampa SQL Group about how she was going to organize the facility for SQLSaturday, talked with Joe Healy about Bizspark, and more!

Biggest complaints: materials for attendees weren't pre-stuffed in the event bags, and the lunch line for pizza wasn't well organized.

Finished up the day with a late lunch at The Green Iguana - if you're in Tampa you should try their Baja Burger!