Embedded Systems Conference software focus

4/3/2006 11:23 PM EDT

ESC was anything but gloomy and wet. I met old friends who I haven't seen in a year, or two, or in one case over four years. And I met a bunch of new folks with whom I'm sure I'll make long term friendships.

But the best part, was going into stealth mode and lurking in the back of class rooms as the packed audience listened to some really informative presenters. An all day session titled "Crafting Embedded Systems in C++" was busy educating a full house on the details of using C++. I have to admit I'm a dinosaur. When I did embedded programming it was in assembly language because the code wouldn't fit otherwise. Thanks to Moore's Law, many of today's embedded programmers get to avoid messy machine details. Too bad, there's a lot that a good programmer can do with the down-and-dirty programming afforded by assembly language.

More later - it's my bed time. I want to be fully alert tomorrow for the next sessions.

Oh, exhibits open tomorrow as well.