> If the PHP community finds a better way to interact with > Flash, ColdFusion Development will be in trouble.
I don't know why you'd say this. There isn't even a supported version of Flash Remoting for PHP, to the best of my knowledge. There aren't any great development tools specifically for PHP that aren't available for CF. > If Flash is serious about being the next Generation Web > Interface, they must introduce an application that makes it > easy to generate "Dynamic" RIA. What we are doing now is > like using perl and .cgi scripts to generate HTML. Allaire > figured out a better way to bridge the "gap" and walla - we > have the ColdFusion dynasty. Well, I'd expect future versions of the Flash IDE to be better than the present one, just as the present one is better than the previous one. But, in fairness to the present version, it's not all that hard, assuming you understand Flash development, to use the current IDE. > When Macromedia abandoned ColdFusion Studio and tried to > force us to adopt Dreamweaver or Homesite+ I thought they > were a little insensitive. But when Macromedia introduced > "Contribute" is was insulting. Trust me. People attracted > to "Contribute" will not be the people that build RIA. I would hope not. Contribute isn't designed for developers; it isn't intended for developers. It's intended to allow people who don't know HTML to contribute content to static web sites. > Furthermore, people attracted to Dreamweaver will not be the > community to build RIA. I don't even believe that Flash > Designers will be the builders of generation RIA. Maybe not Flash "designers", but certainly Flash developers will be building these things. To build workable, useful Flash interfaces, you need to know Flash, which is significantly different from ColdFusion. > To really make the RIA thing work, Macromedia, or some one, > will have to give us ColdFusion developers a development > environment that works and one that leverages our hard > earned ColdFusion competencies and listen - "Dreamweaver > MX" is not it. Dreamweaver competes with FrontPage for the > FrontPage sort off developer. ColdFusion Developers are not > the "FrontPage" sort of people. First, to make the RIA thing work, you won't be able to just "leverage [your] hard earned ColdFusion competencies". You'll have to learn something new, and significantly different, from CF. You'll have to learn Flash, which is different from CF in some of the same ways that Visual Basic is different from batch programming. Macromedia can improve the Flash IDE, and I suppose they will, but that's not going to magically make us all competent Flash programmers. And to elaborate on this theme a bit, I think this is the "dirty little secret" of the RIA idea. Macromedia has a wonderful course, "Developing Rich Internet Applications", which is aimed at CF developers, to teach them how to build form interfaces in Flash. However, taking this course isn't going to just enable you to build good, complex, production-quality Flash interfaces - you still have to learn that non-trivial stuff by learning how to design and program in Flash. You're not going to be able to apply much of your CF knowledge to learn this stuff, either, since it's fundamentally different. Finally, I think it's a bit off the mark to compare Dreamweaver and FrontPage. FrontPage is certainly not intended for developers; Dreamweaver is. Lots of people don't like it - I have my own reservations with it at times - but since Macromedia intends it to be a developers' tool, they will almost certainly add the features that developers want. As I use it more and more, I keep finding new useful features in it, and am becoming more satisfied with it myself. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ voice: (202) 797-5496 fax: (202) 797-5444 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| 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 Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
