With that, here is my comment to Brian’s response to this debate:

I agree with you, Brian, in that his post may have been partly about the aspect you allude to. However, I also feel there is a real frustration in what he is really expressing with OO and CF. I noticed this same type of demeanor with some folks over the years when I strongly worked with CF. I myself have a Java background and as such tried to make CF follow the patterns and paradigms in the way that Java did. At the same time, I also recognized where CF fell short and thus worked with CF in it’s capacity as opposed to trying to get it to fit into the same context that Java is in.

With that, I encouraged other folks who worked with me to learn the better structured concepts of OO and MVC patterns and using the right mix of frameworks, such as a MVC, ORM, and IOC framework. The problem is, if you don’t understand these concepts from a fundamental level from the beginning without ever mixing CF in, they can be very overwhelming and start to crush the positive attitude that a CFML programmer may have.

Much of the time I also felt that parts of the community were pushing the use of so many patterns it was ridiculous and I think this is the storm that perhaps Marc was feeling.

To reiterate, I do feel that what you mentioned could be an underlying tone and perhaps fueling of anger and frustration, but at the same time I know from other CFML developers that I used to work with, his feelings at that show on the surface are valid and understood.

I think that most of the expert CFML developers in the community know and understand the limitations of the technology. Keep in mind, however, limitations is defined by what the requirements of a project are. Projects’ requirements should be written around the technology being used. Perhaps ColdFusion doesn’t have limitations in the sense of the word when it comes to “industry standard patterns”. From it’s beginning, it has always defined it’s own set of patterns that work for the CFML workflow. Developer’s need to understand to not try to redefine something that doens’t need to be redefined. If they have different needs in a project that are strong enough to fully set the project’s scope outside the circle of ColdFusion, then they need to choose a different technology.

CF continues to have a strong closely-knit community, something I have always enjoyed about it. Embrace the community, but don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s up to you how you want to program your applications. And yes patterns are good, but don’t overdo it. Allow yourself to focus on the tasks at hand as well as having good design at the same time. True, not EVERYTHING needs to be “OO”.

Finally, change rarely comes at the perfect time. As web developers, the past 5 years or so have been changing very rapidly with new languages, patterns, frameworks, libraries coming out every day it seems. Don’t focus on being up to date on every single one and figure out how you can use each of them in your next project. Pick and choose what you want to learn and learn it well. In a time such as now, stick with what you know cause you need to hold on for a little bit longer, there are some rough winds up ahead.

I’m serious when I say don’t redefine something that is not meant to be that in the first place. I always uphold innovation in it’s highest regards, but there is innovation and then there is redefinition. They are NOT the same thing, so stop!

I want this series to be eye-opening for all the JavaScript developers who think Dojo died a few years back with it’s pre 0.9 days. The 0.9 release of Dojo brought fourth a fresh new start that provided huge increases in speed and stability. Since then, Dojo has blossomed into a full-fledged enterprise ready toolkit that is backed by an awesome community. If the last time you looked at Dojo was back in the pre 0.9 days (early 2007 and before), stop and check it out. Follow this series of posts to see for yourself the power that you can harness in your websites and applications.“these top quality developers know the ins and outs of JavaScript”

Dojo’s community is a special one. Drop by the #dojo IRC channel at irc.freenode.net to be greeted by a group of people who are there to welcome you and answer any questions you have. The best part is, they really know what they are talking about. These top quality developers know the ins and outs of JavaScript incredibly well and prove it when approached with questions. They are quick to provide examples, offer advice, and never talk down to anybody that drops by, seeking help. The developers of the toolkit are often on the channel to provide direct support but everyone else is also excellent and will help you out anyway they can.

In the coming weeks as this series progresses, you’ll see so many more aspects that make Dojo an excellent choice when considering your JavaScript library / toolkit of choice. This is only the beginning.

The examples below are showing connecting to a AMFPHP endpoint as opposed to a ColdFusion one, only because that is what I have been learning and working on recently. For ColdFusion, simply replace the latter part of the string with /flex2gateway/

First, define a new string in your model that references the URI to which you are going to connect with your RemoteObjects:


var endpointUri:String = "http://mysite.com:8000/amfphp/gateway.php";


Then, simply define a new ChannelSet, and Channel to add to the ChannelSet that references your URI:


var cs:ChannelSet = new ChannelSet();
var customChannel:Channel = new AMFChannel("my-amfphp", endpointUri);
cs.addChannel(customChannel);


Finally, define your RemoteObject to access this ChannelSet that you just created and set the destination to the name you gave your AMFChannel:


showBusyCursor="true" />


It is as simple as that! Be sure to take out the services-config declaration in your compiler arguments to test this out appropriately.

Shocked, Ryan went to check and reported back that it was not the case. Since then, I noticed that the misinformation has been removed from Ted’s blog.

The actual question I posed to Ryan was if he thought the $300 certificate cost from Thawte would discourage the development of open source and free applications. He didn’t think so due to the ability to self-sign your own applications, however, at the cost of them being labeled as “UNVERIFIED” when the user installs them. Is there a way around this? Such as a certificate for open source applications to encourage this ever-increasingly popular movement?

I am so happy that the final releases of the long awaited Adobe Flex 3 (and builder) and AIR SDK are here. And they have a couple of other cool bits and pieces about them to go with this major update to the famed leading RIA platform.

First of all, as you can see at the store, the upgrade price is only $99! Also, if you have a keen eye, you will notice that it is no longer a separate license for PC and Mac…they come together now!

This is huge news and is truly making Flex be even more affordable and better than ever. One thing to note, is that the $99 upgrade is for Flex Builder 3.0 standard. Chock up an additional $200 and you’ve got the Pro version which includes advanced charting components and testing tools.

Keep in mind that the Flex framework is still free and open source. The prices above are for the Flex Builder 3.0 IDE products.

Be sure to thank the Flex team for all their hard work!

I will be posting the latest version of TinyMe as soon as they get the update framework working again. I am not sure how long it will be.

This instantly gave me an idea of an AIR app that would allow a user to drag and drop a URL from their browser onto the AIR application and have it retrieve a TinyURL. My main goal of this application, besides it usefulness, was to really show the rapid application development capabilities of Adobe Flex + AIR in creating a desktop application. As soon as I got home from work that day, I began working on it.

With about an hour development that day, and total of 1 hour of development the next day (Thanksgiving) I had a fully working AIR application that did exactly what I needed it to do. I am already finding it quite useful to use and am sure you will to. You may use the installer below if you would like to download and install the Adobe AIR Framework and TinyMe together:

Flash badge has been removed due to the new release of AIR Beta 3.

If the installer does not work, you may download Adobe AIR Beta 2. Once you have installed Adobe AIR Beta 2, you may download and install TinyMe.

UPDATE: Firefox 2 Mac does not work at this time with TinyMe. The issue with Firefox 2 on the Mac has been fixed.