>> Hi, All,
>> I am a new developer of Cold Fusion and Spectra. I have
>> read about the
>> merger between Macromedia and Allaire. Strange enough I
>> didn't see much
>> discussion regarding this issue in the forum.
Speaking with Allaire, Spectra is still VERY MUCH a future part of the new
company. It was simply an administration error that left Spectra off the
Press Release. Jeremy even mentions Spectra in his Open Letter to
developers
URL:http://www.allaire.com/handlers/index.cfm?ID=19506
saying (QUOTE):
'How can we make Allaire Spectra easier and more accessible to the full
range of developers in our combined company?'
>> In the press release I have read about the following
>> statement about the
>> future direction of the combined company:
>> The first step is to deliver on Allaire��s plan to bring the
>> development
>> model of ColdFusion to the J2EE standard.
Yep underway codenamed NEO
>> The
>> next step will be
>> to develop a set of application services��reusable components and
>> application logic��that enhance the major software platforms
>> including Java
>> and Microsoft .NET.
Future software,(enterprise software at least), WILL be developed as
services, applications being simple programs that call each of these
services when required. Therefore it is key that the new company focus in
this area. Saying that, Sun & Microsoft are VERY big companies pushing
different standards. It would be ludicrous for the new company to either
try and start it's own standard, or ignore either of these standards. Any
company that can produce tools compatible with both these standards will do
VERY well.
>> My question is:
>> 1. For the first step, how different it will be from the
>> current "Cold Fusion"?
Having had a preview of NEO, (The Java version of ColdFusion), I can tell
you that it ROCKS. If your a ColdFusion developer and don't care about J2EE
or Java, then hey it won't appear any different to you, you can code
everything in CFML and use ColdFusion as you've always done.
However if your an enterprise developer and J2EE is important to you, well
then my friend your in for an amazing treat. I can't say too much because
of my NDA, but I think I'm allowed to say that in my opinion it's gona rock
the enterprise market, ColdFusion being an excellent Presentation Layer, and
J2ee being the Application Layer. As a J2EE programmer, and a mega keen
ColdFusion programmer, I was stunned. ;-)
>> And how soon do you expect it to be delivered?
Don't Know :-(
>> 2. For the second step, do you think it is going to affect
>> Spectra?
Spectra is going from strength to strength. 1.01 was a first version, (look
at all first version products), and thus there are things Allaire could have
done better. They know this and are working flat out on the next versions
of Spectra, just look at 1.5 its a great improvement, Spectra 2 even better.
It is true that you need a little bit of skill to eak out the speed in
Spectra, but it can be done, it's just that most people complaining about
Spectra's speed don't fully optimize their sites, but that's a different
thread.
As for NEO's impact on Spectra, imagine having the power of a J2EE platform
underneath Spectra, fully plugging Spectra into the Enterprise!
>> Anyway, I didn't find Spectra as one of the "strength" of the new
company.
On the contrary Spectra is a MAJOR strength of the new company. Sure I see
NEO being a major backbone of the new company, but NEO will only be the
operating system, and will need programmers to make things happen.
Macromedia on the other hand caters mostly for designers, who don't care
about programming. Spectra bridges the gap.
Down one end of the spectrum programmers build the Spectra objects. At the
other end imagine if a designer could easily select Spectra objects from a
toolbox in Macromedia UltraDev, and just drop the objects onto the page,
even edit containers, site maps, etc. Now you have a great platform. Is
this just a pipe dream? No, I've done it, that is re-programmed part of
Ultra Dev so it would talk to my Spectra servers, allowing me to select
Spectra objects and drop them onto my page, without ever knowing about the
code underneath. The new company will allow the vision of the Spectra
spectrum of participants to be fully realized.
The future is VERY VERY bright, I personally can't wait :-)
David 'Maddog' Maddison
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