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The ColdFusion Podcast Roundup: Monday, March 20, 2006

by Charlie Griefer, Fusion Authority Media Reviewer

The ColdFusion Podcast Episode 19: Where is ColdFusion

This week's episode opens, as per usual, with a brief rundown of recent newsworthy items.

• Of course, the big ColdFusion news is cf.Objective(), which was recently held the weekend before last in Minneapolis, MN. Bryan and Michael didn't go too much into depth on the subject which is okay since (as they mention), it's getting coverage in many of the popular CF related blogs.
• MAX 2006 has been announced and will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in October.
• Ryan Stewart's ongoing Flash and Flex development efforts are mentioned, along with his review of Goowy.
• Ray Camden is in the midst of blogging a multi-part series on building your first Model Glue application.

With the news wrapped up, we moved on to today's subject, which was somewhat of a departure from the norm. Where past episodes were more technical in nature (either dealing with some specific technology such as Model Glue or event gateways, or interviewing one of the ColdFusion gurus), today's episode was simply an editorial piece on why ColdFusion is not a more prevalently used technology.

While I appreciate the attempt at diversity, this isn't the type of content that I'd necessarily tune in for. I read blogs (and by extension, listen to podcasts) with the hopes of learning something new. Whether it's a "how-to" or simply something pointing me in the direction of a new technology that's worth spending some time with, I hope to come away knowing something more than I knew going in.

Perhaps it was the subject of the discussion itself. It's been done ad nauseum on just about every ColdFusion-related mailing list or forum/bulletin board. Whether it's "Why is (name of technology other than ColdFusion) beating ColdFusion" or "Is ColdFusion dying" or "Is ColdFusion dead" ... it's always a variation on the same theme. Granted, the question posed isn't quite so morbid or foreboding. Neither Bryan nor Michael ever really stated that ColdFusion would disappear altogether.

Questions were posed as to whether Macromedia should have marketed ColdFusion more aggressively (and whether Adobe should ... or will). Is ColdFusion's price tag the big obstacle when PHP, Ruby, and other similar technologies don't share the up front investment? Would a free version of ColdFusion help it to gain a stronger foothold and expand? Will Ruby on Rails be ColdFusion's downfall?

If you've not been in on this conversation in the past, it may be of interest to you. After all, you're a ColdFusion developer. It's in your best interest to try and stay one step ahead of where it's going (and try to influence its course if you don't like what you see in front of you).

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ColdFusion Weekly Version 1.0 Alpha

ColdFusion Weekly is the new kid on the ColdFusion Podcast block. As such, I expected a relatively lightweight episode (or "version," as Matt and Peter prefer to call them ... for the sake of consistency, we'll refer to it here as an episode).

The requisite introductions were made, with both Matt and Peter telling a little bit about who they are and what they do. They proceeded to introduce the show itself, explaining how it came to be, and how they hope to make it stand apart from the other ColdFusion Podcasts.

Their goal is to have a "Virtually Live" call-in show. Members of the ColdFusion community can call in (either via land-line, Skype, or email) with questions and comments that will be played (and discussed/answered) during the show. Although today's episode wasn't intended to feature this, I look forward to it in future episodes. I think this sort of interactivity will keep things fresh and interesting.

With introductions out of the way, we moved on to the CFReport. I'm not quite sure if this is supposed to be similar to the ColdFusion Podcasts's news segment, or if it's meant to be dedicated to a single subject per week. This week's CFReport focused on cf.Objective(), and gave a high level overview of some of the more memorable aspects of the conference. Chris Scott's talk on Aspect Oriented Programming was mentioned, as was Tom Jordahl's keynote.

This segued nicely into an interview with Jared Rypka-Hauer, the organizer of cf.Objective(). It might be a nit to pick, but when the interview started, the audio was noticeably higher than it had been previously in the show. It wasn't quite as bad as when you're listening to your favorite tune on your favorite audio player and you inadvertently load a web site that features a Flash intro with obnoxiously loud audio... but it would be nice if I didn't have to adjust the volume during various segments.

The interview itself was interesting, as it showed a little bit of what it takes to organize a successful conference. I think when we go to MAX, CFUnited, and now cf.Objective(), we somewhat take for granted the effort that went into getting all of the pieces into place. Jared discussed how the conference came to be, and some of the obstacles that he encountered along the way.

After the interview, this week's CF_Quiz question was announced. This will be a weekly feature where listeners can call in (or e-mail) their answers to the CF_Quiz question, and a winner will be picked at random from all of the correct entries received. Again, I like the interactivity that this will add to the show on an ongoing basis.

The episode wrapped up there (with the exception of some exit music that also played MUCH MUCH louder than the rest of the podcast... almost up there on the same level as the aforementioned Flash intros). Keeping in mind that this was, by and large, an introductory episode, it was light overall in some of the content that I hope to see on an ongoing basis. I think a large part of the success (or failure) of this podcast will be directly related to the level of participation by the community. If enough people call in with questions, or partake regularly of the CF_Quiz, the format should be a winner.

Time will tell.

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Charlie Griefer is a Software Engineer at Vurv Technology (formerly Recruitmax) in Jacksonville, FL, where he spends his days (and on occasion, evenings and nights) developing world-class workforce management, staffing and recruiting software solutions.

In his spare time, he enjoys being a father of two and a husband of one.

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