Report, Allaire Developer's Conference 1999, October 24-26, 1999

 
Dec 13, 1999

ColdFusion developers from around the world converged on Boston last month for the Allaire Developer's Conference. From the Keynote addresses to the open post-mortem, the seminars, workshops and exhibits gave us a chance to meet the key people in our industry and share information with our peers. Learning, networking and partying, all in one fun three-day package. Above, J.J. Allaire and Charles Teague share "insider" information with the avid crowd. (Photo by Charlie Arehart)

by S. Malkah Cohen

Developers from all over the world converged in Boston recently to share ideas and hear from the horses' mouths just what Allaire has been up to and plans for the future. The need for such a gathering is only emphasized by the fact that registration had to be closed over a month before the conference because of the tremendous demand. Many individual sessions were booked solid, despite the last minute addition of repeats. And independent developers were not the only people clamoring to get in: Corporate staffers who want a better understanding of the tools they must work with were well represented as well.

J.J. Allaire and Charles Teague give us their take on what's new in the ColdFusion world. (Photo by Charlie Arehart)

A huge amount of information was packed into just over two short days of workshops, hands-on tutorials, corporate exhibits, tech room consultations, corporate "get-to-know-you" events and more. In addition to the eagerly awaited 4.5 upgrades to ColdFusion and ColdFusion Studio and a look ahead to next year's 5.0 releases, we were treated to an in-depth look at Spectra, the newest filly in the Allaire stable, now in pre-beta training and due out on the track in just a few months. Some two dozen Allaire Premier Partners demonstrated their wares and recent projects.

J.J. and Jeremy Allaire were front and center throughout the conference, giving the keynote addresses and policy presentations, answering questions and generally being available to the community. Both expressed their delight at the tremendous turnout and talked about how to expand the conference next year to include those that had to be turned away, as well as offering more in-depth coverage and additional subjects.

The Allaire brothers discussed in detail the general future of the Allaire product group at several of the functions. As witnessed by the ongoing acquisition of related products and the ongoing internal development of new ones, the general aim is to wrap new products around ColdFusion's core platform to create a whole far greater than its parts.

The e-Business Opportunity

The new world of e-business is growing exponentially, at a rate previously unimaginable, and Allaire/ColdFusion must not only keep up but lead the way. New business models are evolving, changing the way companies operate and collaborate.

Jeremy Allaire, in a session titled "The Future of the Allaire Web Application Platform," described how Allaire is positioning itself as "the industry's leading independent e-business platform vendor." He spun several business model scenarios, fictionalized, but based on actual cases, for the attendees.

One model was "Cambridge Music Works, Inc." This large company has been in business for over twenty years, has a large customer base, and carries a wide range of high-tech products, mostly sold by catalog. Its current business model is hybrid, and it now faces a major challenge, rolling out "MusicWorks.com," a new internet portal, linking the internet to home stereos for MP3. The company must support continuity and steady new growth by building integrated systems based on a complex database, while integrating a complex legacy system.MusicWorks.com will support sales by both intra- and internet as well as customer service.

In this model, the company must be able to provide a single personalized view for each person working on the project through the corporate intranet, linked to the various corporate resources. Internal collaboration is to be increased by threaded e-mail, project management tools and groupware. Reusable modules will be set up wherever possible, using middleware to "stitch" systems together.

Not all functions will be "in-house." Order fulfillment and certain internal functions, such as human resources and payroll, will be outsourced to independent contractors through middleware, as well. However, the company anticipates an internal need for over 500 content management staff (who will need a standardized interface to do their jobs), plus ten Java programmers, twenty Web developers, five designers and five administrators. They will be accessing two data centers (corporate and a co-located web center) in two large-scale clusters, supporting a mixed environment of NT, Solaris and Linux. The project must be scalable, redundant, and secure, with 24/7 availability, and the job must be completed in very little time.

Another scenario involves a brand new industry and a new IPO: NewMusic.mp3. They also have a short time-to-market factor and must stay fast moving in order to stay competitive in a cut-throat new field. Deep market penetration is essential.

NewMusic's portal will offer both free and for-fee music and support a community of over 250,000 registered members. Threaded messaging and chat will be available to those members. Distribution can be real-time over the net by both subscription and syndication. They have outsourced CD delivery to Logistics.com, who can UPS existing product and can press custom CDs, as well as manage the actual data stream of music. Direct internet to stereo download and wireless links will be available. A push-model of notify/try/buy will be key.

NewMusic will also outsource such internal operations as human resources and payroll and is focusing on scaling its applications across the board.

Both the older company and the start-up face many of the same problems. Both are interaction-driven, with time-to-market and scalability imperatives. Both need new applications, new business models and access to the new wireless connectivity technologies. Java and XML will be part of the glue holding their operations together. ColdFusion products, including Spectra, can provide the solutions each one needs.

Allaire's Answer

The Allaire team knows that they must create the application server technology that defines how people use the web. They must provide a comprehensive platform, a packaged system and all of the essential pieces.

The web application server is the foundation of its work. Spectra is effectively a suite of integrated functions, built not only for developers, but with every step of site development and management in mind, including the interface with the customer. With this bold new step, Allaire is aiming at true web system management, with broader integration of all aspects and an enterprise-wise management model. Spectra will manage web data centers to build e-businesses, working from a common console and a browser-based interface.

Allaire's acquisitions in the last year, especially JRun and Bright Tiger, incorporating advanced programming functions and 100% up-time paradigms, have been aimed at these goals. A firm focus on fundamentals, cross-platform compatibility, modularity and pan-industry business practices allows Allaire to build flexible functionality across a remarkably broad range of features. From content management to workflow and process automation, role-based security to customer personalization, business intelligence to syndication, Spectra will serve as an e-business' integration hub.

I-Build

At the heart of the Spectra presentation was a mock website called i-Build. This is an imaginary web-based super-hardware store. In addition to its sales and internal corporate functions, i-Build also maintains an extranet for contractors, which maintains a database of bid information for contractors to review and base their on-line bids on.

In demonstrating the various operations of i-Build, Ben Forta showed off many of Spectra's capabilities: Built-in Studio functions, split screen capabilities, automatic linking of functions and information, nested data, collapsing/expanding code sections, Java support, WDDX output, and Function Insight (function-sensitive help and completion, based on Allaire's Tag Insight model), among them.

New Features

Great tidbits about new features floated across many sessions. For instance ... CFObjects integrated outside objects of all sorts with Java through CFScript. CFQuery is now more secure and flexible, with control of eventual outcome. Developers can prevent essential information entered at earlier steps from being lost on failure of a later function by rolling the data back rather than aborting completely. CFMail is among the many functions that have been completely rewritten. Reduction of redundant white space, a major "readability" issue, evidently, was a very popular improvement.

Tying It All Together

Spectra is certainly turning out to be the grand blooming of the Allaire product line, but the conference taught us that each of the other pieces, from ColdFusion and ColdFusion Studio, through the work horses of JRun and ClusterCATS, on down to the "lighter" versions of HomeSite and ColdFusion Express, is still being thoroughly supported, continually enriched and widely deployed.

The developers came away from the conference tired but charged up for the ongoing real-world fray, knowing their product line of choice can do the job.


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