Andrew Powell

Andrew Powell's Blog As CFML developers start to learn Java and move into the realm of Spring and Hibernate, it is very important to stop and ask 'What Is ColdFusion?'. ColdFusion, since CFMX, has been a J2EE application running within a J2EE server (JRun, JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, etc.). This is important because thinking of ColdFusion like this lets us expand our mind to what we can really do with ColdFusion. We (CFML developers) can start to leverage J2EE services and frameworks like JPA, JNDI, JTA, and others to make ColdFusion a real player in the J2EE stack. Java developers are quick to dismiss ColdFusion as simply a J2EE app and miss its real potential:  It is the fastest way to get data to the web.  It is the fastest way to get data to AJAX, Flex, Silverlight, and... (more)

Opinion: Give ColdFusion Some Room to Breathe

Andrew Powell's Blog OK, so we know ColdFusion, to quote Joe Rinehart, makes it "stupid-easy" to render HTML off of dynamic data. We (CFML developers) have been using it to do this for years. Only recently, with the fast emergence of RIAs in the last 5 years, has the game changed.  My personal approach has become to to let ColdFusion do what it does best, and no more. No AJAX generation or... (more)

Industry Viewpoint: The ColdFusion Knowledge Gap

This is something that has been simmering below the surface for a while, but needs to come out in the open. There is a knowledge gap in the ColdFusion community and it is only getting wider. There are a lot of what would be considered "entry-level" or "junior" developers out there. These people can use a good bit of the database functionality that CF offers, but don't push it much beyond ... (more)

In Today's World of AJAX and Flex, Is XML Past Its Prime?

Is XML overrated? This is a question not asked lightly. It is a heavy and bloated question, much like XML itself. XML has been around since 1997. It is document based and it is extremely verbose.  It requires a higher payload across the network and cannot be natively used once it arrives. The XML payload must be consumed in some fashion.  None of these activities attribute to the speed o... (more)

Spry - AJAX Made Simple

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is nothing new. The technologies behind AJAX have been around for quite a while. Jesse James Garrett just gave the amalgamation of XML, DOM, and JavaScript a catchy new name. Many CF developers hear buzzwords like AJAX and Web 2.0 and simply tune out because they think it's too much to comprehend. If they'd simply stop and take a look at what AJAX ca... (more)