Cf.Objective(): ColdFusion Comes of Age

 
Mar 20, 2006

by Judith Dinowitz

I'm still high from cf.Objective(), the advanced ColdFusion conference that took place March 11 - 12 in Minneapolis, and I may have more reasons than most of the attendees. For starters, I helped to produce the conference by managing the public relations and editing the conference book. For the most part, the conference ran very smoothly and felt professional, a credit to the organizer/host, Jared Rypka-Hauer. Special thanks go to the sponsors for their support, to Steven Hauer and Michael Dinowitz for their assistance during the planning stages, to Sean Corfield for keeping things moving, and to Dee Sadler for volunteering to produce the conference booklet. Attending sessions helped me learn a lot about the high-level ColdFusion programming that I had not really been able to get a handle on. (As an editor and writer, I need to know this stuff, even if I don't program.)

Although these are all good reasons to be proud of the conference, they are not, ultimately, what made this conference exceptional. It was the feeling that ColdFusion, and the ColdFusion community, have matured. The fact that a first-year conference like this was planned, and succeeded on so many levels -- the final count on attendance was 97 -- indicates that there is a real call for Enterprise-class ColdFusion applications and development. I suspect that for every attendee, there are one or two developers who did not attend, merely because a first-year conference is an unknown quantity.

Why do I say that ColdFusion has matured? We have several frameworks in active use, which is one sign of a mature programming language. The session schedule for this conference, which highlighted many of these frameworks, generated obvious interest because almost no one chatted in the halls on the first day. They were all in the sessions, soaking up ideas and techniques. People were there to learn, not to shmooze. (The shmoozing came later on in the evening, when we all congregated in the bar and relaxed.) In fact, several people admitted to feeling conflicted; they wanted to be in two or three places at once, but the laws of physics hampered their enjoyment of the conference!

Why do I say that the ColdFusion community has matured? I say that because the overriding message of this conference -- from Hal Helms' keynote on Sunday to the general discussion in the sessions and in the halls -- was one of pride in our language, and in our community. ColdFusion developers have nothing to apologize for. We are not a whittled-down version of Java, nor are we a language for small sites only. ColdFusion is a strong, robust language that can handle the types of development that are in demand in the big corporations. In his "Duck Typing" session, Hal said that for years, even he tried to fit ColdFusion into a Java mold and to treat his applications as if they were Java OO applications, done with ColdFusion. Hal admitted a need to get past that mindset in order to use ColdFusion to the greatest effect.

As programmers who have come into our own, we are ready to start looking at questions like the one Hal posed in his keynote. Hal discussed the business aspects of marketing a technical language. Every product has a position in the marketplace -- one word or phrase that comes to mind when you hear the product name. What position does ColdFusion hold in the mind of an IT manager? Unfortunately, Java and .NET have already taken the position of "Enterprise development." ColdFusion's position boils down to two words: "simple" and "easy."

Helping sell Will Tomlinson's ColdFusion gear outside forced me to miss the end of Hal's Keynote. It's a shame because I love Hal's presentations and try not to miss a single one. So I'll have to read about it with everyone else in the in-depth session coverage of cf.Objective() in this issue and in future issues.

The subject matter, atmosphere, and attitude of this conference showed me that the ColdFusion language and community have come far since ColdFusion's inception, or even since Macromedia purchased Allaire. This gives me a tremendous feeling of satisfaction, but it's not why I'd call this conference a success.

A good conference is not an in-depth training seminar (as my friend Clark Valberg noted). The object of a good conference is not to teach, but to inspire. It provides access to people who are much more experienced in the subject and a place to make contacts and exchange ideas. Attendees should leave armed with direction and the desire to move forward. I left the conference feeling uplifted, energized, and full of enthusiasm for all things ColdFusion. By the end of cf.Objective(), I had a better understanding of Object Oriented concepts, and of the frameworks that pepper the ColdFusion landscape. Did I know everything there is to know about these frameworks? No, although I do have a head start over someone on my level who did not attend the conference.

Did cf.Objective() meet all these criteria? Definitely.

No conference is completely flawless. Several attendees remarked that the hotel seemed less than stellar. The night activities also wanted better planning and the first keynote on Saturday could have been better targeted for an audience interested specifically in ColdFusion. But these were small nitpicks (which I'm sure will be rectified next year) compared to the overall experience of the conference, which was, in my humble opinion, stellar for a first year conference.

I hope that I'll see you at next year's cf.Objective(). I'm certainly planning to go, and we're going to make next year better than ever!
Judith Dinowitz is Editor-in-Chief of Fusion Authority, the House of Fusion Technical Magazine. She is well-known as the CFEditor, having worked on many articles and books for other publications.

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