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Raymond Camden on "Model-Glue, Spry, and You"

by Clark Valberg

Today I sat down with none other than Mr. Raymond Camden, well-known ColdFusion community figure, serial author, prolific blogger, and Louisiana's state delegate to the national "Lost" fan club (ok, I made that one up). Ray is responsible for some of the most widely used open-source ColdFusion software to date (BlogCFC, anyone?). If you've never perused, installed, or perhaps even profited from, a piece of Ray's code, it's probably just because you don't get Internet access under your rock. So here's my attempt to get the goods on Ray's upcoming cf.Objective() presentation, "Model-Glue, Spry, and You". If you haven't registered for cf.Objective() yet – get to it, man!

Clark Valberg:	Ray, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today.
Raymond Camden:	No problem at all, Clark, thanks for having me.
CV:	I see you're speaking on a pretty nifty topic at cfObjective(). Now, I was there for your Spry presentation in New York last week and I must say, one would be hard up to find anyone as passionate about Spry as you are. But I have to ask, where does Model-Glue come in?
RC:	Model-Glue, as a framework, helps us organize and build our applications. And while I think most folks get that, I think there is some question as to how to integrate AJAX into the equation.
CV:	Sounds like we're talking about better "views"?
RC:	Well, I'm not quite sure better is the right term per sé. The reasons for using AJAX are well known, and in general, yeah, they are there to improve the experience. I think folks should not think, "AJAX is always better". It will lead to overuse.
CV:	Ok, so I'll refrain from saying that Ray Camden is making Model-Glue more "Web2.0"
RC:	I think everyone is quite aware of my feelings on that particular phrase.
CV:	It sounds like this topic may have been born from personal experience. What can you tell us about your first time developing a Model-Glue / Spry application?
RC:	At first, I wasn't sure how to approach it &ndash mainly because I had this mindset of, "Oh, its AJAX. It's special," which is a mistake, really. I then simply treated it as one more request, just one that was serving up XML instead of text. My talks cover the ways I found to make it a bit simpler to handle.
CV:	What about other popular AJAX libraries? What is it about Spry that you feel makes it an especially good fit for ColdFusion / Frameworks?
RC:	The number one reason, which isn't really framework-related, is how simple Spry makes things. As you saw at the presentation, there is a minimal amount of JavaScript involved which allows you to focus more on presentation. Take a typical example: displaying a grid of products. In other frameworks, I may spend more time on the JavaScript side of it. In Spry, though, I can bypass most of that and get to the display quicker.
CV:	So speed of deployment is the big advantage?
RC:	[Nods] Many of the same things that apply to ColdFusion. And tied to that, is Model-Glue, which also gives you a guide to setting up your application. So it's all about RAD [Rapid Application Development], really.
CV:	I saw a Spry 1.5 announcement on your blog recently. Anything you think might be particularly exciting for us ColdFusion developers?
RC:	Everything. Seriously, Spry continues to grow into a strong product. Every new release sees great improvement. So while it is fair to say it isn't Protoype yet, I think it's growing quickly.
CV:	So can we expect to see some fancy examples, or what?
RC:	Heh, yes. In my spare time. 1.5 is still a preview, so you can't really download it yet, but you can view the source and play. Probably not recommended for production.
CV:	Well, Ray, that sounds like a whole truckload of goodness. Think you can fit it all in one session? Darn it, I'll bet you a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of chianti that you can't!
RC:	Heh, I'll take the sandwich.
CV:	One final thing. I've been experimenting with ColdFire and now I can't stop playing with debug information long enough to get any REAL work done.
RC:	Heh. ColdFire was a bit of a surprise hit. We released on Tuesday, I think, and it's #9 at RIAForge already. Within a few hours we found some significant problems. So for a LOT of people it doesn't work at all, which saddens me. But we (we = Myself and Adam) are working on it. I've made changes to the ColdFusion side and Adam is working on the front end. I think we are close, and the next release should at least make it workable for most folks. That is our #1 goal, to make it work right. After that we have some darn good ideas for features to add.
CV:	You're in a non-stop release cycle. I guess that's why they call you a machine, eh?
RC:	It's easy when you love something.
CV:	Well, thanks for the chat, Ray. I'm looking forward to your talk. See you at cf.Objective()!
RC:	See you then, Clark!

Those who wish to enjoy Raymond's presentations at cf.Objective can register at http://www.cfobjective.com/conference/index.cfm?event=page.register. The early bird price for all three days of the conference, which ends on April 1, 2007, is $395.

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Clark Valberg is President of Epicenter Technology Consulting in Albany, NY. Epicenter provides software design and consulting services to organizations of all shapes and sizes. Clark's under-visited and under-authored blog can be found at this cleverly worded URL: http://www.clarkvalberg.com/.

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