I see a trend happening at Adobe that I believe others may be detecting but no one has come out and said it yet. This trend will have a significant impact on software engineers who are experienced and/or committed to the Adobe stack of technologies – specifically to ColdFusion developers.
I have seen the question, “Why do I need to learn Flex?”, floating around for about two years now from many ColdFusion developers. These dedicated folks have noticed the ongoing trend of companies moving their user interfaces from straight HTML/Javascript to Flex.
Aside from noticing the trend being enough of a motivator to learn Flex (and it should be), the trend at the technology level should be additional motivator.
The reason I entitled this article ColdFlash! is that I believe that by the time ColdFusion 11 is released to the public, the lines between ColdFusion and the Flash Platform will be practically eliminated to the point where entire applications can be written in the Actionscript language. ColdFusion will simply be another package available to Actionscript developers, much the same as data visualization.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that led me to this conclusion.
The era of static web applications is coming to an end. Everywhere you look, there are Flex web sites, Flex web applications, Flex business applications, iPhone apps, Android apps, AJAX sites and applications, and even Silverlight (but since this is an Adobe related article, we won’t focus on “that” technology).
Using these technologies allows developers to create interactive, responsive, intelligent, and user-friendly applications that people actually enjoy using – because in the end that’s what it’s all about. I’ve seen many apps created that perfectly fulfill the requirements established for it, but are disliked by the users because of the technical restrictions the old world of HTML placed upon it.
Of course, we’re still living in the world of HTTP, but with Adobe’s AMF protocol, it’s not as painful because our payloads have been drastically reduced – which increases responsiveness even further.
I believe what I’m trying to get at here is that RIA can no longer be considered a fad, a passing fancy, or a dead-end trend. Just like technologies such as ASP, ColdFusion and PHP completely transformed the Internets from a vast collection of non-interactive HTML pages into a data-aware, responsive universe, the RIA trend is the child of that revolution. Applications can now not only present data, but present it more quickly, more intelligently and in a more visually engaging way.
If you are ColdFusion developer, and not even considering learning some of the technologies is what is now called the Flash Platform, you are ensuring your continuing progression towards being along the same career path of a COBOL programmer. Granted, that’s an extreme example, and may not be accurate, but it conveys what I’m trying to get across.
For me, the most powerful feature of working with ColdFlash is that it’s all built on the Java platform. You could have Java developers, and ColdFlash developers in the same organization with no loss in productivity or community.
In fact, one of the things we’ve been considering in my team is the possibility of coverting some of our heaviest ColdFusion Components into Java code to increase our performance (sidebar: Let’s go ColdFusion team! We need even more speed on CFC creation) when sending back large arrays of objects to our Flex clients.
In conclusion, I want to say that I don’t believe ColdFusion as a language is going away, Adobe has proven that it’s going to be a core component of the Flash Platform, but I do believe it is going to evolve into ColdFlash and that the best career move that ColdFusion developers can make right now is to learn Flash, AIR, and Flex.
In 2-3 years when the Flash Platform becomes more integrated, employers are going to be looking for the whole package, not just a ColdFusion developer, and not just an Actionscript developer.
9 Responses for "ColdFlash!"
You make the assumption that ColdFusion is not already considered an integral part of the Flash Platform. I think that it’s positioned alongside BlazeDS, LCDS, and FMS at the server-tier of the Flash Platform (have seen slides to this effect). Point being, it’s already happening, people just haven’t noticed it yet.
I’m not actually making that assumption myself, Andrew, because we already consider the two inseparable, but yes, you’ve nailed the point of my article perfectly.
Steve,
I believe people have noticed and that’s why so many CF developers have jumped on the Flex boat. I personally hope, and I seriously mean it, that Adobe does NOT integrate AS3 into the CF product. The AS3 language would suffer from this, and it would do no good for CF in my eyes either. Any server-side AS3 needs to be a distinct and individual product, added to the LiveCycle platform.
Adding AS3 into CF would also bloat the current product and would make the AS3 portion of the product built on a legacy code base. I see no advantage in adding this into the CF product, except for maybe that the CF product would see an influx of developers (for the wrong reasons).
So, while I agree with most of your viewpoints, let’s hope that Adobe keeps their heads straight and decides not to integrate CF+AS3.
I have found CF to be a very powerful backend platform for Flash applications, and it can continue to do so! But an AS server-side product needs to stand alone.
Hi there TJ. Just to clarify – and sorry if I was confusing – I don’t see AS3 becoming integrated into ColdFusion. This is not what Adobe currently has, nor do I think they intend on doing that.
If you look at the current docs about server-side Actionscipt, what you can do is utilize ColdFusion “libraries” from Actionscript. This is what I’m talking about from an integration standpoint. Adobe appears to be adapting ColdFusion feature to be available as server-side components in addition to being used inside a CFML application.
Hey Steve
I would definitely agree with you there. CF is a very nice compliment to the Flash Platform for a lot of reasons. I am positive that, regardless of the backend technology I use (Java, Groovy, Server-side AS3?), that there will always be a place for CF in my Flash apps. Adobe has built a great foundation with CF as a service engine for Flash apps!
Well remember that Adobe can do what it wants with it’s coldfusion product but that’s all they have is their product not the actual language. I doubt the cfm committee would allow the language to go that way when it doesn’t benefit the other players.
What I could see happening is Adobe pulling a m$ (which they are getting closer to everyday as it is) and taking their cfm product and try to dictate and force their way with it and go against the committee & that’s what would scare me! Coldfusion could turn into an IE type disaster and screw us all.
Personally, I’m putting my eggs in the Railo basket as they seem to be moving cfm in the right direction and doing things right.
You kind of lost me on that one Dave. I wasn’t really talking about CFML at all, but really about the ColdFusion product as you fairly pointed out is solely owned by Adobe.
As for ColdFusion turning into an IE type disaster (not really sure what you mean there), I don’t see any disaster happening since Adobe has done a great job of steering the ColdFusion product line into a more powerful and productive platform.
Railo IS doing a great job with its own CFML parser product, but Adobe is doing a great job as well. Not sure why you’re disparaging Adobe when they’ve done nothing but make ColdFusion into more of a great product.
More to the point here, is that Adobe has moved Flex/Flash/AIR/AS3 forward by leaps and bounds by implementing the ability to import CF as libraries, per se. Previously, if I wanted to manipulate pdf’s, images, etc I had to do a RemoteObject call to a CFC, load the server, then return the result to the user. Now, thanks to CF 9 it can all be done client side in the AS. Saves a huge amount of network resources and server resources as well – unless I misunderstood the docs.
great name for a new CF framework
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