On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 4:54 PM, Adrocknaphobia <adrocknapho...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm confused about whether you disagree with what I've said, or are just > trying to redirect the conversation away from my question.
I was asking for confirmation / clarification on your position. I'll try to be more specific (below). > If I said that EDG was wrong and there > are only 1000 ColdFusion developers in the world Well, on one hand you're saying the CFML market is healthy and growing - and that's what the evangelist kit is meant to support - yet on the other hand you're saying that the market is shrinking - and blaming the FOSS engines. It can't be both so I'm asking you which it is? If more downloads is a measure of health then Adobe's 11k + Railo's 3k should indicate better health than just Adobe's 11k alone. If you're saying that the market is shrinking, then either downloads are no measure of health (and the 11k figure in the evangelist kit is fluff) or we would expect to see the overall downloads decrease - in which case Adobe's downloads must have dropped by over 3k a month for that to be true. Which is it? If you're claiming the community is shrinking, presumably you believe that the upward trend shown in the EDC numbers has reversed (even tho' you're still using those numbers to present an encouraging picture of the CFML community)? If the overall community is shrinking, that would have to mean that developers are leaving Adobe ColdFusion for other technologies - and doing so in large numbers, far beyond any number who might be using the FOSS engines. Let's suppose that the 900 developers on the Railo list have completely stopped using Adobe ColdFusion (they haven't - many of them use ACF for some projects and Railo for others). Out of nearly 800k developers, that would mean about 1% have adopted Railo, assuming zero growth in the community since 2008 - and for that to actually be an overall reduction in the community, Adobe must be losing developers faster than Railo is gaining them. Where are those other developers going and why? Even if you argue that Railo's download numbers indicate a faster flow of developers away from ACF to Railo, the only way the numbers support a shrinking of the overall community is if Adobe's download numbers have dropped dramatically since mid-March 2010. At 11k per month, you'd be on target to have 130k downloads a year. Railo had about 30k in the last year. Have Adobe's numbers really dropped so far that the total community downloads is shrinking? Yes, I can accept that Adobe's revenue might be impacted by competing tools, but I don't really buy the shrinking community argument and I certainly don't buy that competition within a community causes that community to shrink. If it really is shrinking, it's doing so for other reasons. Is the graphics / photography market shrinking because PhotoShop has competitors (both commercial and FOSS)? Hopefully that's less confusing? > I stand by my original question, is the CFML developer better off today than > they were 3 years ago? OK, I'll answer: yes, allowing for the overall impact of the economy, I do think the average CFML developer is better off today than in early 2008. I believe the trend shown in the EDC numbers has continued (although I think the economy has slowed growth of the CFML community somewhat). I believe developers are able to use CFML on projects where they had to use other technologies before. I believe that where some developers would have been forced to migrate to other technologies - for a variety of reasons - they now have a viable option to remain CFML developers and to stay within the ecosystem that surrounds the various CFML engines and tools. I think CF9 was a great release (as was CF8) and I think the teasers about CF"X" indicate even bigger / better things are in store for CFML developers. We have a great dedicated IDE in CFBuilder with solid plans for versions 2.0 and 3.0. To me, that all adds up to a very positive environment for our community. > Just please > don't get bent out of shape when Adobe recognizes Railo/OpenBD as a > direct competitor. I have no problem with Adobe and Railo and OpenBD being considered competitors. Most people consider competition to be healthy in a free market economy. -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/ An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:341765 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
