CF Summit notes - Keynote Day 1, Adobe Staff
October 28, 2013
Thursday Keynote -- Adobe Staff
ColdFusion's been around for a long time, since 1995.
ColdFusion is dead -- for 8 years people have been saying that, over half the time it's been around!
Units sold per quarter thru 2012 and 23013 exceeding 2011 numbers.
trial download numbers are consistent for the past few years
they remain good numbers year after year
thousands of new customers
last few years show definite shift from CF standard to CF enterprise
businesses mature, models change
standard can be more easily replaced with "free alternative"
the revenue is on the Enterprise side
CF has had some twists and turns over the years
some good, some bad features
but needed to do that to keep innovating and keep CF going as a great tool for Web App Development
So where do we go from here?
(Ben's thoughts, not the official adobe answers)
Adobe is not a 1-product company any more
CF is doing well. it's a mature space. THAT'S why it's not on the adobe.com home page
CF is a mature product in a mature category
CF is on version 11
PHP is version 5
its really hard to figure out what mature products should do w/ their next version
what you expect from future products needs to be realistic
we're also not in the 90's any more -- building something because "it's cool, and figure out how to make money tomorrow" is a long gone ideal
CF must change as user need's change
what people build now is different than it was 10 years ago
CF must embrace trends, not fight them
figure out what users WANT, make it easy to integrate WITH them
any time CF stuffed in a library because it was cool at the time, but when you actually try to USE them, they run into limitations quickly
that's not a bad thing
need to focus on what we do best, and ignore what others do better
CF needs to experiment w/ the new and be willing to part with the old
time to say it's ok to part w/ old features
need to worry less about backwards compatibility
CF is not the solution, it's PART of the solution
need to develop in what customers want
if you identify yourself as a "CF developer" you have a weird emotional attachment
will make it hard to take a step back and look objectively at the available tools
CF has remained true to productivity since day 1
*************
cf11 -- codename "splendor"
cf12 -- codename "dazzle"
Language Enhancements
Full script support
use ANY tag in CF script
Samples of how things would work in both Tag and script syntax:
QueryExecute
-- easily execute sql from cfscript
-- supports EVERYTHING that cfquery supports, query of query, etc
Member Functions
array, struct, string, list, date, query, image, spreadsheet, and xml
.length
.info
.addRow
etc...depending on which data type you're using.
PDF creation
revamped the underlying engine
high quality pdfs
understands html and css completely
cfhtmltopdf source="cnn.com"
...looks EXACTLY the same as the website
(comparison w/ old PDF tag....it was NOT the same. :) )
Archive PDFs forever w/ the "archive" attribute
digital signature -- build into CF 11
will be able to create, sign, get and validate signatures
Mobile App Dev - Vision
wanted to provide a "unique end to end workflow" to leverage existing skills on the server side to build mobile apps
goal - increase the penetration, relevance, and footprint of CF as a platform
has nothing to do with UI, this is not "CFPod revisited"
it's just a framework
will be able to write CFML and interact w/ javascript
CFsummit mobile app
device detection built in
- detect device touch support, canvas support, width and height, etc.
client server communication
no need for a "proxy" class any more
just create an instance of the CFC and you're done
additional support
- custom tags on client side
- cfquery on client site
- cfhttp to invoke REST
on-device debugging via CFBuilder
Deploy workflow -- integration w/ phone gap build
easy to use cfml phone gap APIs
can use ALL the phone gap features
right-click on project "generate phone gap build"
ColdFusion's been around for a long time, since 1995.
ColdFusion is dead -- for 8 years people have been saying that, over half the time it's been around!
Units sold per quarter thru 2012 and 23013 exceeding 2011 numbers.
trial download numbers are consistent for the past few years
they remain good numbers year after year
thousands of new customers
last few years show definite shift from CF standard to CF enterprise
businesses mature, models change
standard can be more easily replaced with "free alternative"
the revenue is on the Enterprise side
CF has had some twists and turns over the years
some good, some bad features
but needed to do that to keep innovating and keep CF going as a great tool for Web App Development
So where do we go from here?
(Ben's thoughts, not the official adobe answers)
Adobe is not a 1-product company any more
CF is doing well. it's a mature space. THAT'S why it's not on the adobe.com home page
CF is a mature product in a mature category
CF is on version 11
PHP is version 5
its really hard to figure out what mature products should do w/ their next version
what you expect from future products needs to be realistic
we're also not in the 90's any more -- building something because "it's cool, and figure out how to make money tomorrow" is a long gone ideal
CF must change as user need's change
what people build now is different than it was 10 years ago
CF must embrace trends, not fight them
figure out what users WANT, make it easy to integrate WITH them
any time CF stuffed in a library because it was cool at the time, but when you actually try to USE them, they run into limitations quickly
that's not a bad thing
need to focus on what we do best, and ignore what others do better
CF needs to experiment w/ the new and be willing to part with the old
time to say it's ok to part w/ old features
need to worry less about backwards compatibility
CF is not the solution, it's PART of the solution
need to develop in what customers want
if you identify yourself as a "CF developer" you have a weird emotional attachment
will make it hard to take a step back and look objectively at the available tools
CF has remained true to productivity since day 1
*************
cf11 -- codename "splendor"
cf12 -- codename "dazzle"
Language Enhancements
Full script support
use ANY tag in CF script
Samples of how things would work in both Tag and script syntax:
QueryExecute
-- easily execute sql from cfscript
-- supports EVERYTHING that cfquery supports, query of query, etc
Member Functions
array, struct, string, list, date, query, image, spreadsheet, and xml
.length
.info
.addRow
etc...depending on which data type you're using.
PDF creation
revamped the underlying engine
high quality pdfs
understands html and css completely
cfhtmltopdf source="cnn.com"
...looks EXACTLY the same as the website
(comparison w/ old PDF tag....it was NOT the same. :) )
Archive PDFs forever w/ the "archive" attribute
digital signature -- build into CF 11
will be able to create, sign, get and validate signatures
Mobile App Dev - Vision
wanted to provide a "unique end to end workflow" to leverage existing skills on the server side to build mobile apps
goal - increase the penetration, relevance, and footprint of CF as a platform
has nothing to do with UI, this is not "CFPod revisited"
it's just a framework
will be able to write CFML and interact w/ javascript
CFsummit mobile app
device detection built in
- detect device touch support, canvas support, width and height, etc.
client server communication
no need for a "proxy" class any more
just create an instance of the CFC and you're done
additional support
- custom tags on client side
- cfquery on client site
- cfhttp to invoke REST
on-device debugging via CFBuilder
Deploy workflow -- integration w/ phone gap build
easy to use cfml phone gap APIs
can use ALL the phone gap features
right-click on project "generate phone gap build"