On 5/13/05, Ben Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Really, though, like Hal said in another post to this thread, Simon > > Horwith said at PbD, and others have said... if you want Java, program in > > Java. It's not what CF was meant for. > > I think you've confused me with someone else or you've misunderstood what I > was saying. I am most certainly not arguing that ColdFusion needs nulls, > interfaces, strong typing, etc. "Null Object" is a pattern. It's not a > feature of the language. That's why I put it in mixed case. >
The funny part about this whole thread is that it was not started by a Macromedia manager (i.e., Tim Buntel) looking for feedback. At the end of the day with both the interfaces and the null discussions is that these feature requests have been on MM's plate for well over two years now, and after all that time, the only real non-web services-related change from MX 6.1 to 7 was the addition of an XML returntype!! I think that sums up the engineering team's focus. I don't say that to suggest that CFCs won't be enhanced down the road somehow, as I'm well aware of what MX 7's focus was supposed to be. However, it's clear that the product managers are focusing more on "Making Hard Things Easy" (see Tim Buntel's recently blog entry with that title) and hardening existing features. At the end of the day, introducing interfaces and a concept of a null is a massive undertaking from an engineering standpoint. Sean Corfield has touched on this in previous threads (sorry, can't find direct references at the moment), and, while I don't have anywhere near his level of Java expertise, common sense dictates to me that it's certainly not trivial. Because of MM's mantra of backwards-compatibility, it's not like you can just re-arrange the whole CFC architecture at this point simply to accomodate those features. Let's face the facts: CFCs, by several accounts, just are not the "bread and butter" of what makes ColdFusion marketable. I love them, and can't really work without them at this point, but they certainly weren't what convinced my boss to plunk down $6,000! And while I'd personally love to see interfaces, as I think they are a critical concept in the OO world, their addition is not going to sell more units. Maybe the pending Adobe acquisition will translate into more R&D dollars so that engineers can spend more time looking at the issue while other engineers are working on new features. Maybe not. But, as I said, if after over two years we haven't seen those features, I can't imagine why they'd become a priority now. Maybe Vince and the New Atlanta team can seize the ideas and add them to the BlueDragon implementation? Competition is a good thing! Regards, Dave. ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). CFCDev is supported by New Atlanta, makers of BlueDragon http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/index.cfm An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
