nategraves

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good, general purpose development conference? I went to WWDC and Google IO last year and both are (unsurprisingly) very platform specific. So, I'm hoping to find something more general; although a good language oriented conference would be fine too.

Today, in the office, we had a brief discussion of some of the industries or fields that seem to have had relatively little technical innovation over the past decade. Some industries seem to be getting a lot of attention from technical minds these days (e.g. the power grid, alternative fuels, etc.); others seem more stagnant and some may not stand to gain a lot from technological advancements.

But, I'm curious to hear others' opinions. What industries are using technology and practices that are antiquated?