My Job Went to XXP and all I got was my lousy P45
Here we are again at our 6-9 month interval with talk that ColdFusion is dying. To be honest I’m fed up with all this FUD, why do we have to go through this so much. Do ColdFusion developers really have to worry this much?
Well the title of this entry, doesn’t current affect me, but from what I am hearing on the grape vine this is happening to many CF Developers in the UK at the moment. Why is this happening, because ColdFusion developers are lazy plan and simple.
ColdFusion makes doing some real complex stuff really simple, which for the mostpart is great, but this has made CF Developers become lazy, I help out with the UK ColdFusion User Group in London; we're currently meeting at Design UK who have kindly allowed us to use their meeting room. Right next door we have one of the biggest property sites in the UK PrimeLocation.com a site that was built in Spectra and thus ColdFusion. Do we ever see anyone from there walk the 30 seconds required on the First Tuesday of every month? I’ll give you the answer to that no we don’t! Why? Who can tell? Also we have 192.com (Updated 10:00: Sorry would seem we do get 192.com) & The Economist again London companies and we don’t see them at UKCFUG meetings either. (Guys if there is a reason and we are able to help out then we will.) There are other large companies, like Sky that do allow their developers to come to such meetings and events. The reason being? They invest in their developers, and allow them to get inspired. Which in turn benefits the products they supply to their customers, both internal and external.
If you are currently a ColdFusion developer and your company is still running on CF 6 or previous and they are choosing to move to another technology; in the what I call XXP Range (ASP, PHP, JSP) then plain and simply tough cheese. It’s your fault no-one else's but yours. The UKCFUG have done enough sessions over the years about the new features of the new releases for you to have looked at and then taken to your management and say “Hey look what an Upgrade to the next CF will let yes do, quickly and easily!”
If you look at the posting by Ben Forta about the Economist upgrading to CF8 from 5 why did it take 3 releases and 8 years before they upgraded? OK maybe the site was running fine, but
- You should always move forward, support runs out and then were are we?
- There are always speed increases with new releases.
- You will make your developers happy that they can learn new techniques. (If they haven't got too lazy that is)
The ColdFusion developers that Blog in the UK: Mark Drew, Andy Jarrett, Andy Allan and Neil Middleton to name a few; I don’t think any of them have actually been on a course to teach them anything about CF they didn’t already know (Maybe they have gone on the course just to add it to their CV). All the advanced stuff they know, Frameworks, IDEs etc. they have taught themselves. This isn’t down to having a great employer that will allow you to take time to learn this stuff, it’s about them as developers wanting to better their selves.
A job isn’t for life anymore, and of course nor is a technology, but you can prolong the life time of your position and a technology if you invest in yourself. At the end of the day your job as a developer pays your Rent/Mortgage puts food on the table and lets you get bladdered at the weekend. So just investing a night a week or even every two weeks or just one night in a month for a CFUG, will prolong the life time of your job.
If your company is thinking of moving from CF because they are stuck on CF 6 or previous; Then ping me, and I'll try and help out and liaise with Adobe and get you in the Expert help from them to resell CF to your employer.
Together and only together can we stop this rot, ColdFusion is a great language to work with, with all the additions of Flex and Air in the market place it’s the best placed back-end / middle-ware option out there. Even today I interviewed a Junior guy that only started using CF before Christmas and his enthusiasm reminded me of myself back in 1996 when I first started playing wit it, so it's still as easy and lovable as it ever was. We just need to preach more about it's benefits.
Be Proud Stand Up and Say “I AM A COLDFUSION DEVELOPER” and never say “My Name is X X and I haven’t touched CF for x Years” like you're at an AA meeting :)
ColdFusion isn’t dying, the next release which may be called CF9 is already in the making, So Adobe must still have faith and belief in it.
Show your support at Scotch on the Rocks in June
I've updated the post to reflect this, we must bring back the registration form on the UKCFUG Meetings!
I can relate to everything you're saying, as we get the same headaches up this neck of the wood as well. No excuses in London though I'd say you lot have it so much easier when it comes to option and choice :-)