It Goes From God To Ben Forta To Us
Last night, Ben Forta came to NYC to talk about the next version of ColdFusion - ColdFusion 8, code name Scorpio. It was a total blast. We just about packed the auditorium with ColdFusion fans and I am sure no one left the event disappointed.
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I am not going to try and talk about any new tags or functions as I know that many people before me have done that and to a much better depth than I would be able to do. All I am really going to say is that ColdFusion 8 looks freakin' sweet-ass and I can't wait for it hit the shelves. With every version of ColdFusion brining even more outstanding features to the table, one can't help but think... is there some divine intervention going on here?
Reader Comments
Divine intervention. I like that. If you ask me CF8 is on trail to being the best so far. Sure CF7 was great but I didn't see it have as many features that 8 will have that will be so useful. I can't wait till CFU comes around to learn more about it. Great job with the post card but make sure you drop Ben Forta a note so he can bask in his glory!
Is this a new CF greeting card?
I'm a little upset about the meeting. It was only 3 hours. Lets be honest here:we're New York. This is Ben on Scorpio. He could have at least given us 7 or 8. I mean really! he doesn't have to be in New Jersay until tonight.
64 minutes of sleep is enough for anybody. :)
But the 3 hours were well worth it. Now we're going to have to have a few months of Scorpio before/after meetings to get people ready for the beta and release. Before will have to be the buildup stuff from 7 like application.cfc and the use of eclipse/cfeclipse (stuff covered in FAQU issue 1 *plug*). Then we can go into the new stuff using those (for example) and more. Oh it's going to be fun. Maybe we can get Ben to use the new CFPresenter tag to give us a few extra presentations. :)
All I care about is what new things Ben discussed that he hasn't already spoken about! Like a previous poster said...this IS New York...surely there were things that he was saving for you guys.
Share the love Ben (and Ben)!
Been wondering about something ever since cf.Objective()
ColdFusion is a niche language. I know no one here likes hearing that (heck- I don't like saying it) but unpleasant facts are still facts.
That being said, look at what Adobe's doing. With Flex, LiveCycle (I think that's what Flex Data Services is called now), and Apollo, Adobe is looking to corner the RIA "market", and have some mindblowing tools to do just that. All easily integrable with ColdFusion.
Now, take a look at some of the changes in CF8. Since I can no longer keep track of what can and can't be said while under an NDA, all I'm going to say is that many of the little syntax annoyances that non-CF developers often complain about are going away. I find this very telling- cool features are great, but it looks to me like CF8 is more than that. It looks like Adobe is throwing some serious resources at making CF more than just a niche language with an enthusiastic community.
And good on them, I say.
Just some "Before The Second Cup Of Coffee" thoughts.
And by the way...nice Real Genius reference.
@Michael,
I totally agree. Would have been awesome if there was an official Q&A session after the presentation (rather than just random people going up and waiting in line to ask him questions). But then again, you have to admit - 50 presentations in 4 weeks (with Ben handling like 30 or them) - that is just bananas! It's a good think Ben loves to talk about this stuff.
I think the upcoming CFUG meetings are going to be awesome. And just remember, if you happen to have CF8 on your lap top for beta testing, and that laptop is accidentally hooked up to a projector, and people accidently walk into the room and sit down... is that really any problem with the NDA? I think not ;)
@Andy,
To be honest, I have been purposefully NOT reading other people's CF8 reviews because I wanted this one to be totally awesome. By not really looking at what other people have blogged, this was ALL new to me :D He did say at one point that something he was showing us was only released the day before and I think there was something else that was first shown to us... but I cannot remember off hand which feature it was. I am sure other will speak to this better.
And way to get the Real Genius reference! It was very obscure and paraphrased. Rock on! I love that movie.
@Matt,
As Ben Forta said in his presentation, you can really see the Adobe foot print showing up in the software. This was more of a reference to PDF stuff I think, but certainly, I agree that this is just one of the signs that Adobe is extremely committed to building this language and allocating some sweet resources.
And yes, there is stuff in CF8 that is just gonna rock, and some of that stuff is really simple syntax annoyances as you mentioned. I can't wait!
Yes, ColdFusion is a niche language and that niche is about to be the center of the Adobe business platform. We can talk about the exchange integration, the AJaX (proper casing according to my editor) and Flex integration, .net integration, pdf form control, and other features but as another poster said, there's so much going on that even I'm not sure what I can talk about and what not. Either way, expect ColdFusion to stay as much a niche as any other Adobe product in the marketplace. :)
I've been around CF since version 3 and have always been amazed with it. I learned to program with Pascal and Java and well after interacting with many other languages over the years NOTHING is as easy to use as CF which I'm sure all of you are aware of. That being said CF 8 really is amazing. Thank the lord above for the new syntax changes in CFSCRIPT, I can't tell you how much that is going to make my life easier. There was a lot of talk about where CF will go once Adobe took over but all the conspiracy theorists can relax now, CF is obviously not going anywhere. The new developer enhancements and integration enhancements is going to help CF increase its market share and really position it for wider acceptance. Now the PHP, .NET and RUBY crowd really have to look up and take notice!
I just wished I got a t-shirt! :(
That's the single thing I can say about the first Adobe release of ColdFusion. They're coming out of the gate STRONG!
I think what he said new for us was a 5x-8x performance increase in cfobject/createobject.
Photoshop is a niche product too.
;)
As an aside, the above image was created in Fireworks... an even niche'ier product :)
Outstanding Real Genius reset, but where does the laundromat fit in?
I second Sam's comment... that should be a greeting card.
I'm quite happy with the development in ColdFusion over the last few years.
It's a good time to be in CF in my opinion.
;-)