Ben Forta

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Bye Bye Phoenix, Hello Denver

I just arrived in Denver, a pleasant 55 degrees, far more agreeable than 101 degrees in Phoenix!
Last night’s session (in Phoenix) was intense. About 50 attendees in a very nice room in a community college library. We got into a long discussion about RTF and XLS files, the formalization of development frameworks and methodologies, Macromedia’s success pushing CF, and other equally contentious topics. In fact, we kept going for about 3 hours, and I did not even get through all of my slides!

4 responses to “Bye Bye Phoenix, Hello Denver”

  1. Doug Hughes Avatar
    Doug Hughes

    Earlier today I was perusing Slashdot (sorry, it’s a bad habit I can’t break!) and I found this article: http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/04/06/17/1529256.shtml?tid=126&tid=156
    In a nutshell, O’Reilly made a timeline of some 50 languages, and their evolution. See the pdf here: http://www.oreilly.com/news/graphics/prog_lang_poster.pdf
    What struck me was that it included ActionScript, and JavaScript, VB, PHP and more…. but no ColdFusion even hinted at. I couldn’t help but think that was odd, especially as ActionScript was mentioned. What is it about Flash and ActionScript that makes people recognize it as a “live” and serious language, as opposed to CF which has a pisspoor reputation and is perceived as “dead”? What did Macromedia do differently?
    Furthermore, why am I always surprised to meet other ColdFusion developers?
    Just food for thought,
    Doug

    Reply
  2. j_ivanoff Avatar
    j_ivanoff

    Only 101. Were people wearing coats? Remember Ben, "it’s a dry heat."

    Reply
  3. Paul Kenney Avatar
    Paul Kenney

    I think that CFML is seen as a "Markup" or "Template" language and therefore was categorized in the same group as HTML, JSP, ASP. Not that I agree with that decision, but I think that’s why it’s not there.

    Reply
  4. Doug Hughes Avatar
    Doug Hughes

    Paul,
    I think you’re right in some respects, however JSP and ASP are recognized with more seriousness than CF. And obviously HTML is a markup language, but it’s taken extremely seriously — for it’s purpose, that is, formatting web pages.
    I just don’t understand why CF is so maligned. I’ve had conversations with people who deride it for being tag based…. however, I just don’t follow the logic. It seems perfectly reasonable. It’s a syntax formatting decision. It doesn’t impact the overall usability of the language.
    Maybe the problem is that it’s just too damn easy.
    Doug

    Reply

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