Well, along with being cautious about becoming multi-skilled, you really need to focus on 3-4 technologies and settle down with those. Hence, it's one big gamble. My destiny lies within ColdFusion, .NET (using C#), Visual Basic 6 (Com/COM+), and general web dev skills (HTML / JavaScript / CSS). I can safely call myself a very good developer in all these technologies, and these technologies allow me to go wherever I want to go for now. I will still dabble in Flash and Photoshop and C++, but I found that my mastering of them was taking away from the potential I could have in CFMX and .NET.
The moral here is to know your limits. Many I know (including myself) are comfortable in the 3-4 languages bracket, but there are some others who can know much more at one time. As for CF "dominating", it will most probably never happen. All we, as developers, can do is to keep up our good work so CF will always be an option, and an option that will always prove itself worthy (IMHO). Gary W. Sullivan Web Applications Developer (and MCP.NET) -----Original Message----- From: Lincoln Milner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 11:23 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: OT: MM Suprises Wall Street - Can more be done? I would be cautious with the advice for developers to become multi-skilled. In a perfect world, I would be able to do a task in PHP, Perl, CF, ASP or Java, but in the real world my head would explode knowing everything there is to know about that. Plus you stretch yourself too thin if you try to be everything to everyone. I think the key here is that CF is starting to be a bigger player, not because of the improved community support (there were a lot of us who used CF when it was Allaire's baby), but the fact that Macromedia can put more into getting it known out there in the big bad world of competition. That being said, Microsoft loves they're idea of "competition," and their name is much more prevalent, so when a not so tech-savvy person wants a dynamic portal for the company, the people who say Microsoft _whatever_ will probably get noticed more than someone who says Macromedia ColdFusion. We need to start touting good works done in CF, and show what it can do for a client looking for a dynamic content web site. If memory serves, CF holds a slight advantage in price, but that cannot be twisted to imply lack of feature or functionality. For CF to dominate, we need to show what it can do, how well it can do it, and then be able to answer the question, "Why is this better than ASP (or ASP.NET)?" It's an uphill battle, but one I think this community and MM are willing to fight. Lincoln T. Milner Senior Application Programmer/Analyst Department of Health Evaluation Sciences Pennsylvania State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] *****E-Mail Confidentiality Notice***** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
