Latest News from Andrew Powell

RIA News - Flex vs. AJAX: Stop The Madness!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Flex or AJAX? Which one is better? Which one will 'win' in the RIA space? I am tired of this argument. I'm tired of seeing blog posts keeping this debate alive. It's a non-issue, really. I think that people make it an issue when they try, or investigate, each technology and find one easier than the other then run with that technology's banner. Flex and AJAX can, should, and do exist in the same space. Their goal is the same: A rich UI and breaking the old and busted request-response model with the new hotness of the event-driven model. Both technologies can achieve the same goal, but via different paths.

What Is ColdFusion in the Age of Java?

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

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.

Opinion: Give ColdFusion Some Room to Breathe

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:45:00 EDT

My personal approach has become to to let ColdFusion do what it does best, and no more. No AJAX generation or any of that silly UI stuff. Leave that to the AJAX frameworks, or Flex, or whatever your UI is going to be on the front-end. That's what the UI tool was designed for, CF wasn't. Let CF focus on three things: getting data into and out of RIA front-ends, rendering HTML with dynamic data, and providing services that Java and .NET cannot provide.

Viewpoint: Not Every ColdFusion Developer Should Be A Flex Developer

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

I am going to go ahead and contend that although a good number of ColdFusion developers can grasp and understand Flex very well, there are also a good number of ColdFusion developers who have no business going anywhere near Flex. Why do I say this? I am a big fan of Flex. I use it daily to create, what I think are, some kick-ass applications. It is a powerful tool that really changes the game on the web and the desktop. That being said, it is not a tool that every ColdFusion developer can grasp.

So You Think You Know SQL?

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:45:00 EDT

A lot of developers get forced into writing SQL as part of their jobs. Should they be doing it? I don't think so. It's not necessarily the best of ideas, and in MOST cases should probably be avoided at all costs. Besides, developers cannot be experts in every language or technology right? Something has got to give somewhere. It's usually their SQL skills that suffer.

Spry - AJAX Made Simple

Fri, 18 May 2007 20:00:00 EDT

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.

It's Time To Standardize CFML

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:00:00 EDT

ColdFusion, BlueDragon, Coral Web Builder, IgniteFusion, and Railo. All are CFML engines, but none of them support the same implementation of CFML as each other. This, in the long run, is not a good thing. Up front, I am not opposed to other CFML engines. Yes, I use only ColdFusion in production environments, but I have played around a with BlueDragon and other CFML engines. That being said, I feel that we need a common CFML base from which to base all CFML engines; a CFML core, if you will.

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

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 20:45:00 EST

Does XML need to be regarded as a good idea whose time has come and gone? There are plenty of capable replacements availabe when using AJAX and Flex. Some examples that come to mind are JSON and AMF. Both of these formats require smaller payloads and less processing on the receiving and sending endpoints. These data interchange formats are faster and less resource intensive than XML.

Is XML Overrated?

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:00:00 EST

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 of an application.

The RIA Team Concept

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:00:00 EST

One thing that constantly bugs me on projects is when I am asked to work on the user interface. I can do CSS, but it is, admittedly, not my strongest suit. I can do some graphics work, but not my strongest suit.

Industry Viewpoint: The ColdFusion Knowledge Gap

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:45:00 EDT

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 a way to display database tables and insert and update data.

Leveraging WebDAV-Accessible Directories with Mac OS X Server & ColdFusion MX 7.0.1

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:00:00 EST

Recently, with the introduction of ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, Macromedia began fully supporting a Mac OS X Server installation of ColdFusion. OS X Server used to be supported only in a development environment installed on top of JRun, Tomcat, or some other J2EE application server. Opening this platform has opened ColdFusion to a whole new audience and platform.