Adam Lehman On The Future Of CF: Do You Want A Revolution?
Posted by
Brad Wood
Feb 07, 2009 19:36:00 UTC
My busy schedule has kept me away from the blogoshpere the past couple months. I had heard of Adobe's layoffs but I was kind of depressed for a bit last night when I read that they had affected Jason Delmore, former Product Manager of CF. What a blow to the community that was-- and I just had the pleasure of meeting Jason at Adobe Max this year.
I'm feeling better now though.
As I continued reading, I went on to see that Adam Lehman, who followed in Ben F's footsteps as ColdFusion Evangelist, has stepped up into the role of CF Product Manger. I absolutely loved what he said on his blog. What hit home to me was when he likened the advance of CF to a Revolution.I remember when Adam came on the scene. I'm not sure how long he has worked for Adobe, but I had never heard of him until he stepped into Ben's big shoes. In short, he made waves that left a lot of people uncomfortable. We were very used to Ben's mild manner, his subdued green blog, and his quiet professionalism. Ben's pleasant, bearded face was also the face of Blackstone and Scorpio in user groups all around the country.
Adam splashed down as a hip, young radical with an irreverent web site and a bone to pick with "open sores fanboys". I still remember kick back from that in the community. Over the past year I've seen the CF community warm up to him. I believe he has an intense passion for CF that I can identify with.
I chose the blog name "Coder's Revolution" to try and capture the excitement I feel towards the corner the RIA world has been turning. I think Adobe is more-than-capable of shaping the future of RIA's and I believe that we, the programmers, are in a great position to realize that vision.
I really like how Adam likened the battle of ColdFusion to a revolution "with our own ideas and our own innovation". Maybe some day I will finally be able to meet Adam. His dance with a car in London last year kept him away from Max. I leave you with these powerful words from Adam's Blog:
...I do not plan to focus on our competition at all. If we spend our time watching what everyone else is doing, we're doomed to compete with them. If we want to start another revolution, we need to look forward, with our own ideas and our own innovation. Revolutions are born from minorities who challenge the status quo. The ColdFusion community is ripe and I believe it is our job at Adobe to light the fuse and feed the fire. I believe that ColdFusion is the best platform for building web applications. I believe the sums of its strengths are far greater than that of its weaknesses. I believe that all of ColdFusion's problems are solvable. I believe that regardless of size or popularity, the ColdFusion community contains the best damn programmers on the Internet and I plan to do everything in my power not to let them down.
dfguy
hopefully he pushes to get the object creation performance to be THE number one issue they must address.
Brad Wood
That would be nice, but I doubt it. I am a BIG proponent of increasing CF's object creation times, but I know it isn't THE biggest thing keeping CF out of the market right now.
If it helps, I asked Jason Delmore at Max during his CF9/ORM session if the object instantiation times were to be improved in Centaur. He didn't promise a total panacea, but he did assure me it was high on their list.
Gerald Guido
>>high on their list.
Getting bolt into beta great too.... I am chomping at the bit for that one.
As far as object instantiation goes. Railo freakin SMOKES: http://www.myinternetisbroken.com/index.cfm/2008/11/12/Railo-Now-Supports-Transfer-And-is-Insanely-fast
So it well within the realm of possibilities.
Brad, interesting that you linked to my "CF is dead" FUD rant ;). I have definitely changed my opinion on Adam since then, though I still have a strong version to sectarianism. Version 8 did a lot for CF as did Adam. I am really looking forward to 9 and bolt. I am dieing got get my mitts on that puppy/
BTW who is dfguy? I see him all over the place.
G!
Brad Wood
@Gerald:
Railo seems to do very good at performance. Sometimes I wonder if it is because it doesn't do as much (Read: Adobe CF is more robust, and therefore does more) or it Gert and his team are just kick butt programmers showing the big dude it CAN be done. I'd love to believe the latter.
Ditto on Bolt. I signed up for the CF9 and Bolt beta during Max and I can't wait to try them out.
I wondered if you would notice that link--- I had to Google a bit to find it, but for some reason it stood out in my mind. :) I think a lot of people have warmed up to Adam and I am excited to see his energies funneled in the direction of new CF development.
I don't know who dfguy is. That's funny you should ask- I found myself Googling his name this morning as I wondered the same thing to myself. Will the real dfguy please stand up? lol