Idea: Give Adobe Bolt Collaboration Features

In my last blog post, I suggested that Adobe include a list of CFML community resources in the upcoming Bolt IDE in order to promote the community to isolated developers who might otherwise be unaware of all the resources out there. After thinking about it a bit more, it occurred to me that maybe Bolt could take it one step further. Instead of simply using Bolt to point developers to the community, have Bolt bring the community to the developer. Build in an RSS viewer that displays the latest ColdFusion posts from Adobe Feeds. Put in a communicator tool so the developer can converse with other CFML programmers via IM or Twitter. Let the developer screen-share their code with other developers both inside and outside of their organization. Integrate geolocation into Bolt and show the developer a list of other Bolt users (and maybe Adobe user groups) that are nearby. Instead of using e-mail and message boards to communicate with CFML developers, Adobe could broadcast any news announcements to all of the Bolt installs, and Bolt users could submit questions to Adobe and other users via discussion forums displayed in a window of the IDE that gets refreshed automatically. I'll admit, it's a pretty pie-in-the-sky idea. Given that Adobe only has a finite amount of time and resources, I would certainly not want Adobe to leave out any traditional IDE features, the things that allow developers to code quickly and efficiently, in order to take the time to add all of the things I just suggested. But if they did have a little extra time, I think adding even one or two simple collaboration/informational features would certainly enhance the product, and perhaps set a trend for other IDEs to follow.

Reaching the "Invisible" CFML Programmers

On Monday, Sean Corfield's thoughts on how Adobe MAX 2008 went were published on the Fusion Authority website. One of the events Sean cited in his article was a Birds of a Feather session moderated by Adrian Moreno about bridging the gap between expert/guru CFML developers (the ones most visible in the online CFML community) and "9 to 5" CFML developers. I don't know the details of what was discussed in that session, but it relates to an issue that crosses my mind every once in a while: how do you reach out to developers when you don't know who or where they are? And, conversely, how do we help these "invisible" developers find (and participate in) the community? I was a full-time ColdFusion developer for almost two years before I really became aware of the ColdFusion community. My predecessor, to my knowledge, never participated in the CFML community or went to any conferences or user groups, so it never crossed my mind that such resources existed. I don't remember how or when I realized that there was a community of folks with which I could converse about ColdFusion development (though it was probably at CFUnited '05), but the point is is that it wasn't an automatic process. I think this is an area where Adobe needs to step up and promote the community as part of the overall "ColdFusion package". Every sale of ColdFusion should include a list of CFML community resources and a statement that encourage organizations to share that list with any ColdFusion developers they are aware of. If Adobe is skittish about including links to resources that might disappear over time, at the very least they can include Adobe-sponsored resources like Adobe Feeds or the new Adobe Groups site. Even that kind of effort might not reach all the CFML developers out there: in some organizations (like mine) where the ColdFusion server is running in a shared environment, the organization that owns the CF license may not know who all is using the CF instance. So here's another idea: put links to community resources into the new Adobe Bolt. If Bolt is meant to be the premier IDE for CFML developers, then there's a good chance that even the "invisible" CFML developers will grab it and gain access to all the resources it provides.

Initial Impressions of Adobe Durango

In an earlier entry, I mentioned the announcement at MAX of Durango, a framework for allowing end-users to build AIR applications out of shared components. I took some time last night to check it out, and here's what I learned... First off, the components that make Durango work are Flex-based, so if you like to create AIR applications using HTML/CSS/JavaScript, it doesn't look like you can make use of Durango. Durango allows a developer to make the Flex components they build (whether visual or non-visual/service-based in nature) reusable in other AIR applications. The 10-page long PDF file on the Durango page on Adobe Labs explains how to add Durango functionality to components. It also explains how to configure your AIR application such that it can either donate Durango-enabled components, receive Durango-enabled components, or do both. The installation package available on Adobe Labs lets you experience Durango in action. Once the install is complete, you are then able to create a blank AIR application (one set to receive Durango-enabled components) simply by choosing the "New AIR Application" option now enabled in your OS (on Windows, you can simply right-click on the desktop to get to that option). Then you can open one of 4 sample AIR apps included in the install (all of which are set to donate their Durango-enabled components) and put it in "reuse" mode. Once the sample app is in reuse mode, the Durango-enabled components can be clicked and dragged onto the window of the blank AIR app you created, and now that component also exists in your AIR app, and you can save the changes to the AIR app. Certain properties of the component can be coded in such a way that the user can change them in the new AIR app, allowing for some customization of the borrowed component. All in all, it seems like a fairly straightforward idea for making components reusable. The big question is whether or not end-users will utilize this feature. Folks who use a lot of separate AIR applications may see some value in taking bits and pieces from multiple apps and combining them. And it remains to be seen how AIR developers will feel about allowing the components they worked so hard to build to be taken and repurposed by other developers.

Sneak Announcements at MAX: Server-side ActionScript and Durango

I was a little surprised this morning to find little or no mention of the announcements made at the Sneak Peek session at MAX last evening on any of the ColdFusion blogs aggregated by Adobe Feeds. Either I'm missing something or everyone had too much fun at the after-session party last night. :) I don't really have any of the details about the announcements, since I was only half-paying attention to the live blogging from the event and the Twitter stream, but two items stood out for me. One was the announcement that server-side ActionScript is in the works. For those who don't know, ActionScript is the language of Flex, which is a client-side technology. Someone on Twitter said that the announcement meant that you could run ActionScript on the ColdFusion server, so that you could code certain things in ActionScript rather than CFML, but I don't know if that's really the case or not (I'm sure that will be clarified within the next few days). The second announcement that caught my attention was about Durango. To quote the Durango web page on Adobe Labs (it's already available for download): "Durango is a framework that allows developers to build Adobe AIR applications that can be customized by end-users." Basically, it sounds like a means of allowing user-created mashups in an AIR application. Giving end-users the ability to make their own mashups seems to be a trend in the industry lately. It remains to be seen whether users will make use of that kind of power and flexibility. Anyway, I expect folks who are actually at MAX will blog about these items and provide some more details, but I figured I put these items out there so people know what to look out for in upcoming posts from the community.

New Adobe Social Network: groups.adobe.com

One of the later announcements in the MAX Day 2 keynote was the launch of http://groups.adobe.com. At first I thought it was simply a directory of all of the Adobe usergroups around the world, but it's more than that. In addition to giving each user group a blog and a place to list upcoming events, individuals can sign up and create a profile. Once you've established a profile, you can then associate yourself with one or more user groups, event groups, and other individuals within the community. As far as I can tell, it's not quite as fully-featured as the ColdFusion Community social networking site, but it's cool that Adobe has decided to put this out there as a means of encouraging networking and collaboration. I've already set up a bare-bones profile there (username: bcswartz). Not sure what I'm going to do with it or how much I'm going to use it, but I'm there.