Alan Williamson

Along with my then partner Pat Quinn at Webapper and a CFML genius called Daryl Banttari, the creation, naming, marketing and launching of SeeFusion. We collectively came up with the name in a brainstorming session. I have used rival products and the CF8 Server Monitor but SeeFusion is still my favorite tool because as a server engineer it has just what I need with no fluff. I left Webapper in June 2006 so have no ulterior motives in my comments here.

I head up the server division; we specialize in helping clients to troubleshoot and tune CF servers both pre and post Java - (MX). This is an area which is far less broadly served than the development community and of course there is not so much perceived need. In reality though, there is a huge need. Over my years of doing this, companies have saved literally millions of dollars by not trying to throw hardware at an insoluble hardware situation. The CF and JRun logs are literally a goldmine of information and tools like SeeFusion and FusionReactor and the tools built in to the JVM really help with identifying trouble spots and performance issues.

Definitely growing, I have no doubt of that and I speak from the "horses mouth"! as I am in field either virtually or physically every day. There seems to be an insatiable demand at present for CFML developers and not that much supply. One thing I am hoping that comes from the Open BD initiative is a broadening of CFML in training institutions thereby injecting considerably more CFML expertise and knowledge into our community right from school-college.

Clustering is a dense subject so I do not think it is a matter so much of "getting it". The current documentation out there for clustering CFML is very lacking. Back several years ago, Brandon Purcell and Frank DeRienzo of Macromedia, put out some great articles but there has been next to nothing, since. I feel very strongly that in order to succeed fully in the Enterprise world, CFML will need to fully embrace effective and well documented clustering. It will be my main contribution to the Open BlueDragon initiative. As a note point here, I view Open BD opportunities as very much rooted also in the Enterprise, particularly in those that are open source and/or Java-centric.

The prospect of open-source CFML holds a great deal of promise and opportunity, in my opinion. I think those opportunities, fully realized, should bring the benefits of CFML to the whole spectrum of development shops and individual opportunities. Getitng CFML more ingrained-used in our schools-colleges etc will bring great benefits to so many. In addition, I hope to really extend-enhance-document the HA-clustering aspects of OpenBD as I mentioned above.

Since late 1999 I have been almost exclusively involved in "the server side" of things. Not many in our CFML world have had that opportunity, yet, to be honest I feel humbled to be included with such a talented group as we have here. I hope my server-centric perspectives will be complimentary and very contributory to the Open BlueDragon initiative to the benefit of the whole community.

Not very much to be honest. However I do feel that since CFML moved to a Java core that we have not really taken full advantage of the incredible world available to us via the standards in J2EE-JAVA-EE. A lot of that is due to a lacking in documentation of those aspects so if I had to cite something to improve it is the documentation and overall understanding of CFML in the enterprise Java world.

From what is currently available OS - Windows XP-2003 (I know I will be castigated here by my co-committee members ;o). Apache as the web server, yes even on Windows. CFEclipse as the IDE and I do want to say that Mark Drew has just done amazing things with CFEclipse, I know there are others helping but the initiative came from Mark. Since ColdFusion Studio 5 - Homesite there has been no effective IDE work from the main purveyors of CFML, in my opinion. It would be great if we could work collectively as a committee to really help with CFEclipse and have that as one pillar of our Open BD initiative. CFML needs an ongoing and evolving IDE in my opinion.

We we need broad support from the community and that will not be an easy goal to achieve, in my opinion. Most people who work in our world are both in demand and are busy so it is difficult to find time to contribute. Also, I feel, there will be many who feel uneasy about Open BlueDragon either because there are differences between it and other CFML engines or because there is no large vendor supporting it. I almost feel like we have to open additional doors and really penetrate the JAVA-EE world. Currently CFML is typically seen as a "toy" language in that world yet Flex is being accepted. This whole Open BD initiative really is an historic opportunity for all of us in the CFML world to move out of this perception of being second class, we never were but perception is everything.

Contact Mike @ mike.brunt@openbluedragon.org — http://www.alagad.com/go/blog?createdBy=mbrunt