yet another coldfusion blog

I'm currently going through the last day of formal CFUnited sessions (tomorrow is 'favorites repeated'), and I have to say to all the CF'rs out there who have never attended a conference: GO!  Go to expose yourself to new information and ideas, go to talk with fellow developers, go to network, go to have fun, but mostly go to get inspired.

It's the one big thing I always take away from these gatherings is a bag full of excitement for ColdFusion and what's possible.  The sessions expose you to new ideas, there's always a pile of new toys to play with, and the keynotes get you impassioned about your community and your work.

Joe Rinehart gave a keynote on Thursday entitled "ColdFusion is dead ... long live ColdFusion" in which he discussed the two-sides of the conversation: the non-CF'rs who push the agenda that CF has gone the way of the DoDo, and Adobe et.al. showing up-swinging graphs and awards.  Obviously CF isn't dead, and obviously is going to be a long time to come, if only for this simple reason: programmers are inherently lazy when it comes to process (i.e. getting things done as quickly and easily as possible is a natural instinct), so if CF wasn't the best way of doing things, they'd probably have moved on long ago (sure, maybe they're too lazy to learn something new, but that would break the geek-excitement-of-learning-something-new primal instinct).

What Joe put forth as his argument for strengthening and expanding the community was the idea of developing CF application in uber-creative ways, using concepts like SlideSix.com and others to illustrate what he meant.  It was at this point in the keynote that Joe's and my viewpoint greatly diverged.

To me, the strength of a developer community lives and dies on its own merits, i.e. the voice of the community itself.  We have some great voices, variously passionate, helpful, zealous, obsessive, interesting, experimental and just plain genius.  There are the good, the bad and yes the ugly too, and they all add color and flavor to the community.  Guys like Ben Nadel, Sean Corfield, Hal Helms, Ben Forta, and Raymond Camden all contribute to the noosphere of CF, and like 'em, love 'em or hate 'em they help shape perceptions from within and without.  To be sure these aren't the only voices, and in point of fact there needs to be many more.  It's the conversation framed in the individual passions of these gentlemen and others that make the CF community stand up and talk, share, argue, vent, rework and invigorate their work.  They are popular not necessarily because we like their work, but because we sense their passion and it in turn shapes our own.

So part one of my perspective on adding life to the community is this: blog.  Blog about your code, your errors and epiphanies.  Blog about your little app that saved your job or your big app that hasn't seen the light of day for 5 years.  Blog about your passion as it relates to CF or OO, and trust in the fact that someday, somewhere it will help somebody else who's down, stuck, curious, or just bored and needed a distraction.  That's what will help build community.

The other is sharing that passion in the real world.  CFUG's are a great mini-convention environment.  Even if there are only a few of you, and even if the presentations are a little stale and boring on occasion, it is still an opportunity to sit down and talk with people who live in the same community as you do.  Show off you little widget, present a problem you are having, have a open session where you just say "anybody ever run into this before?" or "who knows geolocation" and chances are good you'll have an answer or resource to explore when you get home.

This invigoration of community does not remain an internal ethos.  It travels as a tide over everything it comes into contact with, fostering interest and excitement in those who do not yet understand the ways of the CF.  It is a self-fulfilling thing, as strong community fosters a willingness to join and explore.  In the immortal words of the great Kevin Costner (ahem) "Build it and they will come".

ColdFusion is just a language.  Whether it lives or dies isn't up to the world around us, because we know it can do practically anything in the realm of web, and do it faster, easier and more elegantly than the other languages out there.  Joe's examples illustrate this, but they don't address the issue's of life and death.  Just as life is defined by the vitality of the individual cells in an organism, so too is the vitality of the CF community defined by the vitality of it's individual members.  So get out there, share and exchange ideas and everybody else who comes into contact with our community will feel that same passion and excitement that we do.