CFUnited Blog

WEBSITE REDESIGN!!!!

Hello to everyone!

We are proud to present to you the amazing new CFUnited site brought to you by the awesome Stellr team!

Go ahead! Check it all out, and tell us what you think!

Besides the complete redesign of the website, you will also find some new features.

Each and every attendee can now log in, and personally edit their profile! You can upload your picture, a bio, and other attendees can comment!

We hope you all enjoy and take advantage of this fantastic feature! Use them for networking, finding a roommate, showing off your credentials, and building a presence in the community before you even arrive at CFUnited!

Also, don't forget to register for CFUnited and to book your room at the Lansdowne Resort if you haven't done so already! Keep in mind that the discounted room rates are only in effect until March 15, 2010. That means $179/night for a single, and $199/night for a double!

Check out CFUnited's new design and edit your pages!

Props to Cara for the design and to Elliott for making it all happen! We are proud to have our boy wonder also speaking at CFUnited 2010 this year. Read all about his topic!

Some more topics!!!

We have a few more topics for you...and no worries...we still aren't done :)

Make Your Model Promiscuous - Scott Stroz

Advanced Model-Glue Code Generation Techniques - Ezra Parker

What's New in Model-Glue? - Ezra Parker

Architecting for the Enterprise - Gary Gilbert

Getting the most development out of your Mac - Shannon Hicks

You can read their descriptions and start playing eenie-meenie-miney-moe about what topics you're going to attend!

Also, if you still haven't registered, make sure you do so before 3/31/10 when the prices go up!!

Discounted Rooms at Lansdowne For CFUnited 2010

LANSDOWNE ROOM BLOCK RELEASED!!!!

Yay! We have received several emails daily from excited attendees anticipating the release of discounted room rates for CFUnited 2010. Wait no longer, we have the official go-ahead to release the rooms to the public. Book your room now!

Currently, the price for a single is $179, and for a double, $199. HOWEVER, these rates will increase after March 15, 2010, so make sure you book your room right away! And if you have yet to register for the conference, then you better get in where you fit in!

A huge thank you to the staff at Lansdowne Resort for making it happen, we can't wait to see you again!

A couple more topics...

I know, I know, I was being selfish; I have a couple more to let out! I just didn't want to spoil everyone!

Here we go...

Get the Lead out - Practical Optimization - Dan Wilson

Setting up a Solid Local Development Environment - Kurt Wiersma

Using ColdFusion 9 Server Manager to Cluster and Manage CF - Mike Brunt

Clean Code: Why it matters and how it's done - Brian Kotek

Papervision 3D and Beyond - Simon Free

Hidden Gems in ColdFusion Builder - Charlie Arehart

Building a QA - Testing Environment for ColdFusion Applications - Mike Brunt

ColdFusion and the Open Source Landscape - Sean Corfield

Don't worry, this isn't the final release!

Check out the topics' page to see these topic descriptions and our full list of topics!!

Public Voting will be Extended

Hello all you voters!

We have had a lot of people chatting and voting about topics, so we decided to extend the public voting on topics to February 20, 2010.

So yes, please keep voting!

The next set of topics!!!

Hello my patient followers :) Now, (drumroll please), it is my honor to introduce to you...THE NEXT SET OF TOPICS! Whooohoooooo!

I hope you are all as excited as I am!

AIR Development with jQuery and ColdFusion - Ray Camden

ColdFusion Builder Extensions, making your IDE work for you! - Simon Free

ColdFusion with noSQL - John Paul Ashenfelter

Design Patterns for ColdFusion + Flex RIA - Joe Rinehart

FW/1 - The Invisible Framework - Sean Corfield

I Bet You Didn't Know You Could Do That With ColdFusion - Elliott Sprehn

The Swiz Framework - Brian Kotek

10 Things You Should Know About ORM - Sam Farmer

ColdFusion Builder - Chaz Chumley

Cache Me If You Can - Dan Wilson and Mike Brunt

More to come soon...

Check out our topics' page to see these topic descriptions and our full list of topics!!

Speaker Spotlight - Bob Silverberg

Bob Silverberg - has been developing software for nearly twenty years, the past ten of which have been devoted to web application development with ColdFusion. He runs a small development company from his home in Toronto, where he divides his time between client work, open source development and taking care of his two young sons. He is an active participant on a number of ColdFusion mailing lists and blogs at www.silverwareconsulting.com.

CFUnited sessions: Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects
What Your Mother Never Told You About ColdFusion 9 ORM

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

No, I have not.

2. Why should people attend your sessions?

In my "What Your Mother Never Told You About ColdFusion 9 ORM" session I'll be covering a number of topics that are important to understand when working with CF's new ORM features, but that are not covered in the Adobe documentation. These include some advanced techniques, but also a number of gotchas that you are likely to fall prey to if you don't take the time to learn a bit about what goes on "under the covers".

My "Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects" session covers the use of a tool which will address all of your application's validation needs. If you're tired of writing both client-side and server-side validation code or are wondering exactly where to place the validation logic in your object oriented application, this session will offer some useful solutions.

3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited?

My validation framework is continually evolving so no doubt I'll have some new things to show off at CFUnited.

4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to?

Well, there haven't been that many sessions announced yet, but of the ones that have been announced I'd say I'm looking forward to Dan Wilson's session on Making Bad Code Good, because any session by Dan Wilson is sure to be fun and enlightening, and also Jason Dean's session on Practical Ajax Security, because when it comes to security Jason is da man, and it's a topic that I really need to learn more about.

5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions?

I'm always interested in hearing about how people apply object oriented principles to ColdFusion development. A roundtable on open source development in the ColdFusion community would be welcome as well. Of course I'm hoping that Marc Esher and a bunch of other fun folks will get a chance to host an end-to-end testing roundtable this year - that will be fantastic, and a topic that should be of interest to any web developer.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

In sessions, of course, and in the common areas between sessions. Those "hallway chats" are often the most interesting and inspiring of all. At the end of the day I'll likely spend some time in the bar, catching up with old friends and making new ones. If you see me anywhere, please introduce yourself and say hello.

7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited?

Things are pretty much the same for me as last year. My sons are now 3 and 5, so they keep me busy. I recently started playing tennis again, after a two-year hiatus. From a technical standpoint the new stuff I've been working with includes CF's new ORM features and Git (version control software). Oh, and I made the switch from a PC to a Mac around six months ago and have been very happy with the change.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

I'm not in a very good position to answer that question having never attended a CFUnited. I did attend a couple of CFUN conferences many years ago and they were, as the name suggests, fun.

9. What do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy tennis and skating (which I'm just now learning to do), cooking, spending time with my family, and I've been trying to learn to play the guitar for a few years now.

Topic Voting Opens to Public!

Hello world of all things ColdFusion, Flex and Air!

We are officially opening up the list of topics for the community to vote on! Our keen and trusty Advisory Board have voted on some of these topics already. Some of the topics they are voting on as we speak (blog). But we want to hear the voice of the people, the CF fanatics, the proud self-proclaimed geeks that truly represent what CFUnited is all about! Answer the call to action and make your voices heard!

Evaluate the topics submitted and VOTE

From gurus to newbies, everyone in the world and their dogs can vote (as long as they have an e-mail address) until February 12, 2010.

ATTENTION: State of the CF Union Survey Takers!!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey! As a token of our appreciation, please use the following code, CFSurv50, to get $50 off your registration for CFUnited 2010.

HOWEVER - you have to use it before Valentine's Day!

That's right! Show your love and register!

State of the CF Union results and winner

Thank you everyone who voted in the State of the CF Union survey. I noticed that many folks are not on the latest version of CF and are yet to adopt OO and frameworks. However CFC use is nearly universal. And open source products such as CFEclipse, MySQL and Railo are heavily used. Group learning resources such as user groups and conferences are used by the majority of developers.

Here are some of the interesting things I learned from the detailed results:

  • 80% of developers are using CF8, with about half that number using CF9
  • If you are running CF6 or earlier you are behind the curve
  • Nearly a quarter of developers are using the open source Railo ColdFusion
  • More than half are using Enterprise CF (vs Standard)
  • 80% run on Windows
  • A third use Fusebox with other frameworks such as Model Glue, Mach-II and ColdBox at 12-16%
  • While nearly everyone uses CFCs only a third use ColdSpring or similar to organize their CFC and only one in six do data via CFCs using ORM
  • UDFs, Custom tags and CFIncludes are still popular ways to reuse code but are starting to fall behind CFCs these days
  • Most developers have used CF for more than 6 years and over 90% use object orientation
  • CFers are heavily multi-lingual - using Flex, Java, PHP, AIR and .Net in large numbers
  • SQL Server remains the database of choice, with MySQL closely following. Oracle and Access runners up.
  • Two-thirds of developers use subversion, but a shocking 20% don't do source code control at all
  • CFEclipse, Dreamweaver and CF Builder are the top tools
  • Two thirds of developer attend a local user group some of the time
  • CFUnited is the most attended conference by CF developers, followed by MAX and CF.Objective()
  • The top challenges facing developers today is too much work, followed by maintaining someone else's badly written code and finding the time to learn new features.

And the winner of the ticket to CFUnited is Matthew Jones from Indianapolis IN. If you need to get on top of your backlog of work, learn new CF features, meet OO gurus or get up to speed on Flex or AIR then check out CFUnited.

 

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