If you’re wanting to live The Life, I strongly recommend you go to WWDC. Yes I know, it is expensive. And your work probably won’t pay for it. And you’ll have to take a vacation week. But really, I think it is worth it. Why?

1. You get to learn all the cutting edge Apple tech before anyone else does. For me, also it is nice to have someone explain it to you in further detail, take you through some examples and give you some tips versus just reading the docs.

2. It’s almost completely under NDA. Last year’s WWDC had two bloggable events: the Keynote by Steve Jobs and the .Mac 2.0 session. Everything else was under NDA. And you can’t watch those sessions any other way. (Except for maybe being an ADC Premiere member, but that includes a ticket to WWDC, so really you paid for those sessions even if you didn’t go.)

It was harder to watch them this year since you didn’t get them on DVDs but had to watch them through streamed Quicktime. But again, those sessions are not available to the general public.

3. You have access to the latest hardware. At last year’s WWDC, we had access to the Intel Macs. That was 6 months before the general public got to try them. I know several developers who got a nice warm and fuzzy when they recompiled their app and it just worked.

4. The energy. The vibe. You can’t walk away from the worldwide gathering of Mac developers all into one spot and not feel like you’re going to go home and make some serious headway on your app. And maybe vie for that Apple Design Award too.

5. The people. Life is really about relationships, right? I made some good friends at WWDC. And not only do you have fellow programmers, but you also have designers there and other Mac luminaries.

Oh yeah, Apple just announced the dates for WWDC 2006: August 7 – 11. See you there!