The first advice I would give to any developer attending Dreamforce for the first time would be don't try to attend all the sessions. Rather, I would minimize the time spend on attending sessions, but try to maximize your time at the Developer Zone. At the Developer Zone, you will have a chance to get some hands-on experience with new products and emerging technologies. If it is anything like last year, you will also be able to drop in and listen to a number sessions that are held at the open spaces, and you can, of course, participate on the mini hackathons, even if you are not in the $1 million main hackathon.
As for the actual sessions, I would focus on attend sessions that are presented by either a developer from Salesforce or developers well-known within the community. Googling the presenters prior to attending sessions could help you decide whether you would want to attend the given session. I would avoid any session that is specific to a product or a panel discussion as I found most of those were more of promotional rather than educational. One exception to this is the open developer Q&A session at the end of the conference. Some of the sessions that I found to be on the better presented include:
- Testing and Testability
- Javascript Debugging
Another fun aspect of Dreamforce is the numerous After-party. These are great opportunities to social and get some great free food and drinks. However, it's pretty exclusive, so try to do some research and sign up for those as soon as possible.
Finally, if this is your first time in the Bay area, I would take the weekend and do some sightseeing. I heard the tour to Alcatraz and Segway tour are really fun, although I didn't get to do those last year. Also, renting bike and crossing the Golden Gate bridge is great as well.
Anyway, if this your first time at Dreamforce, I'm sure you will have a great time, and you'll learn thing or two about Salesforce as well.
