Better(?) late than never: CF.Objective() recap

G'day:
I'd kinda decided it was too late in the piece to write this article now, given CF.Objective() was a month ago. Sorry for not writing it up in a timely fashion, but I had a motivation block for a coupla weeks after returning from it. The timing of this blockage was coincidental, and nothing to do with CFO itself.

However I am going to offer some feedback now due to a comment from Jason Dean y/day:

90 ppl in my session at #cfobjective. 14 filled out a session survey. Overall, surveys weren't completed. What does it take? #disappointed
— Jason Dean(12Robots) (@JasonPDean) June 11, 2014

CF.Objective(): this is the end

G'day:
Sorry that I've not been writing much during CFO... I certainly intended to but wasn't in the position to, or the right mindset to do so. I've got lots of ideas queued up, but I need some time to do some research before I write anything down.

And remember when I said this:

Note to self: no hangovers. Do not put yourself in a situation in which you end up with a hangover.

Well that idea did not see fruition at all. This is part of why not a great deal of writing got done.

Anyway, what I did want to say is thank-you to the crew who organised the conference for us all: you really did a great job. And you know me... I'm not just saying that.

I'm not gonna list people's names - you know who you are anyhow - but it was really really excellent to catch up with a whole bunch of people I either hadn't seen since the last time we were @ the same conference at the same time, or who I'd only ever had dealings with online. If I meant to catch up with you and didn't... sorry!

OK, that's it. I have to go post a postcard to my boy, and then... [shudder]... back to the bar.

I never learn ;-)

--
Adam

CF.Objective(): what to put into ColdFusion 2016

G'day:
First things first... I'm suffering from "writer's block" (such as it can be described with what I do here), which is really unfortunate whilst sitting at CF.Objective() and having no idea what or how to write. This frickin' hangover doesn't help, either.

Anyway, I'm only slightly engaged with the keynote presentation (sorry Jen), so will dwell on something Jason Dean said in the intro whilst I direct one ear to the front of the room. Adobe are running a competition today wherein they are soliciting the community for what people consider the top five (I think it was five?) potential features for ColdFusion 2016. So this article has a twofold purpose... for me to formalise my thoughts whilst I write, and for you lot to put your oar in. The competition only runs until after lunchtime today (so like 4h time), but in general let's think about this.

I've previously written down my thoughts on this back before ColdFusion 11 was released: "What do I want to see in ColdFusion 11?". It's pleasing to see a lot of that list have actually made it into the product:

• Member functions
• First class functions
• 100% CFScript coverage
• queryExecute()
• Express install

CF.Objective(): what I will/might go see

G'day:
Bloody hell... this is proving to be a bit of a mission. There are so many good presentations and presentations I feel I should go to and a lot of overlap & different twists on similar content. What I do know is my brain is going to be busy. Note to self: no hangovers. Do not put yourself in a situation in which you end up with a hangover (there, that's out of the way, I can ignore that idea now).

Well that was unexpected

G'day:
Well... once again I am gobsmacked by the community, and in a good way.

Shamelessful plug

G'day:
I'm not quite sure what I think about this one, and not sure how to word things. But one thing I do know how to articulate: Gavin's a nice bloke.

Vote for CF.Objective() presentations... even if you're not attending

G'day:
There was chatter doing the rounds on Twitter a few days back that there's perhaps not as much community uptake as far as voting for what presentations will be given at CF.Objective() 2014.

I've voted for a few presentations, even though I'm unlikely to be attending the conference. I think it's important and useful information for the conference organisers to know what sort of thing the broader community is interested in as far as technology topics go.

Go have a look at the cf.Objective() Call For Speakers 2014 page, and vote for stuff you find interesting. Unfortunately the UI is a bit obstructive, and not a great UX, but stick with it. Also worthy of note is that a lot of people seem to be missing that there is a horizontal scroll bar... most of the presentations are listed off the right-hand side of the screen. So vote 'n' scroll.

As a taster / tempter, here's the list of presentations I'd attend if I was going (in order of left to right ;-)

cf.Objective() day 2&3 - brain dump

G'day:
My health faded a bit on Fri & Sat (some of this was self-induced - especially Saturday - but my man flu was getting the better of me), so I'll roll the latter two days into one article.

cf.baseball()

G'day:
Apropos of not much, here's a badly exposed photo of the cf.objective() bods who have come along to the Twins v Red Sox game:

What a very very shady bunch they are. Update: I've changed to a much better photo... one in which one can actually tell who the people are!

We're currently sitting at the bar at the game. Great fun, great new friends, great conference.

Time for another pint...

--
Adam

OK, another handy new Railo feature

G'day:
I have some downtime @ cf.Objective() at the mo', so looking at some of the stuff Gert showed us in his presentation. It's that or have a beer... but it's perhaps slightly too early for that. Maybe... hmmm. Anyway, whilst I mull over having a beer, I have this article in my head, so I'll type it in.

Enhancement to replace() in Railo 4.1

G'day:
Gert Franz has just given a very impressive presentation on some new features Railo has added in 4.0 and 4.1. There's too many to go through, but here's one that interested me.

In Railo, the replace() function can now take a struct containing key/value pairs which represent the substitution tokens / values to replace. EG:

cf.Objective() day 1 - brain dump

G'day:
OK, I'm fed up with staring at the ceiling fr the last 3h since I woke up around 4:30am (or "9:30am, you lazy bastard, get up" as my still-UK-homed brain was telling me), so I'll knock out a quick article on my thoughts on yesterday's Day 1 of cf.Objective().

What I plan to see @ cf.Objective()

G'day:
Apropos of not much, here's how my thoughts on what I intend to go see @ cf.Obejctive() are currently falling together. All, obviously, subject to change.

Weds

Alex and I won't be getting in to MSP until around midnight (ie: at the end of Weds), so I'll be missing all the pre-conf socialising, unfortunately. Because I lack common sense and good judgement when it comes to whether or not it's an appropriate time to have a beer, I might sniff around to see whether anyone is still propping up the hotel bar. Although I will have just got off 10h of flying, and my brain will be saying "it's 6am", so I dunno. We'll see.

cf.Objective()

G'day:
In a surprise move... I am going to cf.Objective(). So that's quite cool. My mate Alex Skinner is heading over from Blighty too, and he convinced me to tag along. The lads (and guests) from CFHour also had a hand in convincing me I really ought to make it, as the presentations people described they're giving sound excellent.