ColdFusion

Code name Scorpio ColdFusion 8 is currently in alpha, Adobe were using MAX to show some of it's features off for the first time. I was able to catch up with Tim Buntel from the ColdFusion team to talk about Scorpio and what's happening with ColdFusion in general.

Perhaps the biggest thing to happen in Scorpio will be the new server monitoring features. With a sleek UI built in Flex you will be able to keep track of the ColdFusion server's overall health. During development it can be used to identify problem code, one example demonstrated a code error with the segment of code shown and the suspect line number identified.

Monitoring will be capable of running during production as well, enabling checks on server performance.

This version of ColdFusion will have better integration with .Net. While .Net Web services can play nice with everyone else by returning regular arrays and objects in their results the typical experience is that they instead return pointers to DLLs creating havoc with other application servers - Scorpio will address this.

With ColdFusion actually being a Java application, it's been possible for some time to leverage Java straight from ColdFusion itself, one example that a lot of other developers have done in the past is to use Java for image manipulation. Adobe acknowledges that and has added a new tag set that will build image manipulation into ColdFusion itself.

I asked Tim how ColdFusion was faring, there has been some recent discussion here in Australia about where its place is in the application server marketplace is right now. The news in the US is that ColdFusion adoption is on the increase - as a Java solution it's been added to the Federal Government standards list.

It's still a major presence in the Fortune 500 with many organizations taking on enterprise licenses so that they can deploy ColdFusion any time that they like.

Another interesting bit of news is that there have been a number of new ColdFusion users due to the introduction of Flex 2 and the new Flex connectivity features of ColdFusion 7.0.2.

Dreamweaver

Adobe showed off features that should make it into an upcoming version of the popular HTML editor Dreamweaver, no hints as to what's happening with Adobe's GoLive HTML but a quick check of the Adobe site shows it still listed.

Dreamweaver will have better integration with existing Adobe products. In a demonstration an image was copied and pasted from Photoshop into Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver acknowledged the source of the image and offered optimisation settings for the image. The image was then changed in Photoshop, Dreamweaver reflected the changes.

Designers wanting to make more of straight HTML design will be interested to know that there are plans for an upcoming version of Dreamweaver to incorporate Adobe's Spry framework for Ajax - display and management of datasets, effects and UI components like accordion panes can be inserted straight into a page as new behaviours. Spry is available as a download from Adobe Labs.

Adobe want to make CSS even easier in future versions Dreamweaver, one thing that they've got in mind is CSS Advisor, a new companion site for Dreamweaver.

Much like a community site it will advise on CSS problems and offer the public the opportunity to comment and rate it's content. Dreamweaver will be able to analyse HTML and CSS for errors and call the CSS Advisor site directly to get further information about problem code that it's identified.

Better and more specific browser targeting including rendering issues will be introduced in Dreamweaver with better error highlighting and tooltips to detail information about problem code.

The other side of MAX

The public areas at MAX was: black MAX bean bags; agonising slow wireless internet; networking opportunities; guys betting on whether or not they would get an electric shock from licking an Ethernet cable; and smoking - lots of it. Vegas is probably one of the few major cities in the US where it would appear that smoking hasn't been outlawed indoors.

Another very public thing happening during MAX was MAXUP, a show and tell opportunity for developer to literally have their fifteen minutes of fame and present to their peers.

The social side of MAX included a number of parties both scheduled and private, an official MAX event was organised for every night of the conference - the highlight being the Party at the Palms. Organisers took over a large portion of the Palms Casino for the night with the exclusive Rain nightclub pounding out beats.

Sydney web developer Justin Mclean and I checked out the Ghost Bar while we were at the Palms. Located on the 55th floor of one of the two towers that make up the Palms, the bar has a large balcony that extends beyond the building giving you a fantastic view of Vegas by night. Part of the balcony's floor is a large glass panel that if you're game you can stand on, looking straight down through it was a bit of a mind bend.

As an Adobe Community Expert I attended the MAX Community dinner at the very swish Tao restaurant at the Venetian. What was cool about the event was being able to meet a number of folk that I've encountered online in various ways over the years.

Another private event that I went to was a party hosted by effectiveui, the folk who built the eBay Apollo app that was a big hit of day ones keynote. They had a couple of Cirque performers as party entertainment. There was a presentation by a client of effectiveui's from the US Air Force who talked about how effectiveui helped them to build an application on top of Flash Media Server to chat, share images and "Madden" whiteboard via a secure satellite link with their B1 and B52 bomber crews. Quote of the night: "When I showed it to the boys at Langley..."

The size of MAX was at times hard to comprehend. 3500 is quite a lot of people to house, feed and coordinate. Although by Vegas standards I'm led to believe that is about a tenth of an average conference - it's amazing to see that the Venetian Hotel's conference facilities could handle attendees without appearing as though there was any kind of crowding.

The number of sessions on offer over the three days of the conference was many and varied, represented on each floor of the venue by multiple rows of plasma screens and print out stations where everywhere so that you could keep track of your personal schedule.

You need to work the corridors to get the most out of your connections. There were a couple of people that I had intended to catch up with that I just didn't get to see at all.

Here in Australia we have our own MAX equivalent without the crowds yet still gives you the latest from Adobe and hearing from top developers who use their products: WebDU.

Mike Chambers has been a regular to WebDu and it's previous incarnation MXDU and I understand that he's going to make the trip again in March - no doubt to give us the latest on Apollo.