Five Reasons to Attend Into The Box 2019

Into The Box 2019 is next week! As you may have seen in my previous post I’m one of the speakers, and am giving a talk comparing CommandBox to Node.js. But really that’s a very minor thing happening at the conference. There are tons of more significant reasons you should be attending this event. Such as…

1. This is the conference for learning MODERN ColdFusion Development!

While there isn’t really a bad CFML event (fortunately!), many of the conferences offer a variety of content including beginner, intermediate, and advanced information. If you’re interested in focusing on cutting edge, modern web development, Into The Box is 100% just that. There are no sessions targeting legacy CFML development — unless the preso is about how to move said legacy code into the modern era. If you’re looking for a tip on FuseBox or CFIncludes or Custom Tags, you won’t find that here. On the other hand if you’re looking to get charged up and feel excited about writing CFML, this is the event to attend! Want to stop feeling jealous that JavaScript developers have all the cool toys and language features? Come to Into The Box! You’ve got tons of the same modern features and tooling available, you just need to learn where to find them. And this conference will help. :)

2. The best selection of all-day workshops.

I don’t know how they do it, but of all the CFML conferences each year, Into The Box always offers the largest number of pre-conference workshops. Most other events have 2, maybe 3. This year Into The Box has SIX different workshops to chose from. (You can find me in Pete’s class on CFML security this year.)

3. See all the non-ColdBox specific Ortus products.

Do you still think anything that has the word ‘box’ in it’s name must be a ColdBox add-on? And that you can’t use it with your non-ColdBox app? 90% of that is incorrect. ColdBox is 1 product Ortus makes. You don’t have to be writing ColdBox apps in order to use most of their other offerings! Want to build Node.js-esque command-line tools? CommandBox can do that (and come to my presentation to learn more details). Want to get some reusable tests written for your app that’s still on CFincludes and Custom Tags? Use TestBox — and again, no ColdBox required, seriously. You get the idea. We do a variety of consulting at my firm — there are at least as many non-ColdBox apps as there are ColdBox ones. And every new project gets TestBox and CommandBox added because our productivity goes up! You could be doing the same thing, come learn how!

4. Most sessions are non-ColdBox specific.

I fear that, like the Ortus products themselves, people feel this conference is only for ColdBox development. Incorrect! This conference is for modern, cutting-edge CFML development of all kinds!  I count 30 sessions on the calendar. After a quick glance of the descriptions it looks like about around 8 sessions are for ColdBox related things.  There are sessions on design patterns, mental health, CommandBox, containerization, Amazon Web Services (given by the always great Brian Klaas) among others.

5. A Mariachi Band.

Okay so technically this isn’t on the schedule, but it’s usually a given that if Luis Majano is in charge of setting up a conference, he’ll find a way to get a mariachi band involved. I’m betting that this will happen again, and perhaps we’ll see Jorge sing along with them again too. :)

That doesn’t even include the raffle prizes, seeing old friends, making new friends, or the fact that Luis is one of the nicest people in the software industry.  The rest of the Ortus team isn’t too bad either. ;)

Tickets are still available at the conference website. See you there!

-nolan