My Shiny New Job With Cynergy Systems...And The Value Of CFUNITED
Cynergy has quickly established itself as a leader in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) revolution, and I couldn't sit on the sidelines and watch while they had all the fun. Their collective talent and passion absolutely blew me away, and there was no second-guessing once I accepted the offer. You can see some examples of their expertise over on their blogs and the flexcoders mailing list (hint: search for "Cynergy" or "Dave Wolf" or "Andrew Trice" for some sample posts). In short: these guys know their stuff, and I'm hoping to uphold that level of expertise.
You may have noticed in the opening paragraph that I noted that I will be working with Java. Those of you who know me (or have read my other posts) know that I am a longtime ColdFusion developer (I just hit my ten year mark recently). This change means that I will be stepping away from ColdFusion for a little bit while I diversify my skill set with Java and Flex 2. I'm a bit sad, a bit nervous, but, most of all, I'm incredibly excited to be broadening my base and getting into areas of work that are new and challenging. Diversifying my skill set is something that I've been wanting to do for years, but just never found the time to do outside of reading books and playing around with personal projects. And while I firmly believe that ColdFusion will gain more and more traction down the road as more companies recognize its beautiful integration with Flex 2, the reality is that the lion's share of current Flex RIA work is using a Java backend. Further, it has been suggested they are open to eventually bring in more Flex/ColdFusion work down the road at Cynergy, so don't think I'm leaving the CF world forever. I look at it as a hiatus while I go cut my teeth with Java. Also, this site along with some other personal projects will continue to use ColdFusion as its backend as well.
OK, so I mentioned something in the title about the value of CFUNITED. Well, if not for the friends that I made down at the conference over the last two years, this opportunity likely would not have come to fruition. See, two years ago, I was fortunate to meet Adam Wayne Lehman (who is now a ColdFusion specialist for the North American Sales Team at Adobe). We have kept in touch since then, and, at this past conference in June, he introduced me to a good friend and then-co-worker of his, Cliff Meyers. We had a great time at the conference, and then caught up a few weeks ago. Cliff went to work for Cynergy just after CFUNITED and raved about them. At the same time, I was hitting a ceiling at my current job and decided to throw my candidacy out there to see what would happen. Fast forward to last Friday when the official offer was extended, and here we are! While I agree with Sean that there are more to conferences than just the networking, I have to say that there's no way that this opportunity would have come to pass as quickly as it did without CFUNITED. So if you're ever on the fence as to the value of this conference (or other conferences in your field), I'm happy to be a case study in their benefits! It has changed my life and I'm incredibly excited at the opportunities that lie ahead.
I'll be starting there towards the end of this month while I properly transition out of my current job. It may or may not be quiet on here until then!
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Congratulations on finding a new position.
You mention in your post "the lion's share of current Flex RIA work is using a Java backend."
Why do you think that is? Is it just because there are so many websites using Java on the backend and they are tired of JSP for the front end?
Can you use Java classes just as easily as you can use CFCs with just Flex 2.0 (not including Flex Data Services)?
One of the features I like about Flex 2.0 is how easily I can use CFCs on the backend. I don't need the extra expense of Flex Data Services. Sure, my server needs to run CFMX 7.02 so there was some cost there.
If it's just as easy to use Java classes (same remote object syntax in Flex, don't need anything extra for Flex to communicate with the Java class) then I think ColdFusion may have a serious problem competing with Java as the back end for Flex.
Since I used to be a Java programmer, I think I'll brush up my Java skills :)
Bruce
To Bruce,
I won't comment on the Java/CF remark, but I wanted to clarify what is and isn't in FDS. CF 7.0.2 contains a version of Flash Remoting that's been updated for Flex 2 (AMF3). It also contains gateway hooks to the other features of FDS. It's those other features that make CF go great hand-in-hand with FDS, not a replacement for FDS.
The most significant and notable features of FDS that aren't in CF are a messaging infrastructure (externally initiated and client initiated), and a data management infrastructure (cross-client synchronization, implicit data paging and support for occassionally connected computing or OCC). CF gives you AMF3 support and hooks for all the rest of FDS, but not the rest of the FDS features.
I believe that the majority of these features are largely underappreciated by developers because there's first a need to understand what value they provide. If you've never built a large scale RIA (and I'm not saying you haven't), then the value of messaging and data-management becomes less obvious. As developers really settle into RIA they'll see that there's a lot of work they are doing to address common recurring patterns/struggles/challenges.
I suspect the question becomes at that point "Why doesn't Adobe make this easier?" The answer is that we do a la FDS! Flex 2 is a complete RIA development platform.
To the point of connectivity to Java classes vs. CFC's, it is just as easy to connect to either from Flex. What different is how you interact with the rest of your environment from there (RDBMS, file IO, networking, XML, etc.). As an ex-Java programmer I'm sure you can appreciate the value that CF brings to rapid development in just XML alone, not to mention everything else.
I personally would like to think of CF as a value-add for the Java developer - a Java RAD tool if you will. The Java developer that knows CF, and the CF developer that knows some Java are the best armed (with Flex in tow) to conquer any RIA development challenge.
Two cents,
Kevin
I do understand the extra benefits FDS brings and I'm certainly in favor of it. I also enjoy programming web application in CF much more than I did in Java. CF makes many tasks (which you listed) much simplier.
But so far my Java progamming brothers have not switched en mass to developing their web apps in CF. When Flex came out, my hope was that Flex would boost CF web application development. But as Dave's post mentions that has not been the case.
I definately agree with your last paragraph, which is why I'm going to refresh my Java skills.
Bruce
@Bruce: Don't misunderstand my comment regarding Flex and CF. There are lots of people doing Flex/ColdFusion integration work right now. But this pales in comparison to the *huge* market waiting to be tapped for this kind of work. From what I've seen, a lot of the companies making the *immediate* move to RIA development happen to have Java backends. As I noted, I certainly feel that, in time (and I mean within a year or so, not 5 years), there's going to be more of a move both to and within the ColdFusion world to integrate with Flex frontends. Until then, if you want to work with Flex for real-world applications, you're more likely to see Java right now. I think it's because the larger enterprises (I work in New York Cith where the majority of the major financial services companies here use Java) can afford to take a chance on this "new technology" and have it potentially fail, whereas shops that use ColdFusion cannot, and are likely waiting for some success stories before moving ahead with it themselves.
Karl
Congrats anyway. ;)