Stake Five

A little late, I know, but the jetlag has finally cleared enough to allow me to write coherently… Yep, just in time for me to head back to Bangalore and go through this all over again!

As many will know by now, we showed off a bunch of features coming in ColdFusion 8 aka Scorpio. Prayank covered image manipulation, Rupesh talked about CF-.NET integration, and I got to show off server monitoring. For those of you who couldn’t make it, we did record our presentations prior to heading out; I’ll send a link to those once I know where they’re being hosted. If you just can’t wait for those, check out some of the liveblogging summaries that Rob and Ray (thanks, guys!) put out from the sessions:

• Image Manipulation - Ray, Rob
• Server Monitoring - Ray, Rob
• CF-.NET integration - Ray, Rob

As is generally the case with the CF team, the developers presenting features are those who worked on them, so if you have any specific questions of these features, head on over to Rupesh’s or Prayank’s blogs (or mine, but you know where that is!) and leave us comments.

The one big MAX announcement that I think is going to be really interesting is the Apollo platform. Various technologies have attempted to provide simple network-distributed applications in the past, and all of them failed, though some do still linger on - Java WebStart (still alive and kicking), Zaplets (dearly departed), Droplets (still around, it would seem). Then, of course, there are newer contenders like the Yahoo desktop widgets; while that engine is pretty interesting, it doesn’t yet match Apollo for features and, for the moment, seems aimed towards more restricted one-off applications.

I think Adobe has got it right with Apollo - the programming environment is simple and familiar (JavaScript, HTML, Flex, PDF, all of which CF plays with nicely, of course), and Adobe owns what is arguably amongst the most powerful software distribution mechanisms on the planet, the installed base of Flash player users. You’ll be seeing Apollo applications in the enterprise pretty soon, I”m sure; but I’m equally certain that you’ll be seeing a lot more of them out in the wild, on the public web. This is one client technology you don’t want to miss out on.

Apologies all for the long silence - after I got back from a perfectly lovely holiday in Goa, work got pretty busy, especially with all the last minute preparations for MAX.

I arrived in Las Vegas last night. A little early, perhaps, but those of us who are presenting from the CF team decided to get here a day before MAX kicks off so we could beat the jet lag in time for our sessions. Being a night owl is great in Vegas, I know, but having my mind shut down thinking it’s time for bed won’t be so good when I have to deliver my session, Unlocking the ColdFusion Server Black Box. For those of you who are here, do attend it if you can - I’ll be previewing some new CF tools, and I’d love to get your feedback.

The best part about this for me is that I’ll finally be able to move some of the stuff I’ve been working on for Scorpio out of stealth mode. I’ll be writing more about it here, so those of you can’t make it out to MAX can get an idea of some of the things the CF team has been throwing in the pot for Scorpio.

I’ll be at the reception tomorrow evening, of course, so if you’re here, do come by and say hello.