An Architect's View

I've attended every cf.Objective() since the first one in 2006. That first cf.Objective() was awesome! Every one since has also been awesome. Since the demise of CFUnited, cf.Objective() is the biggest CFML event on the calendar. It offers the best CFML content in the world - and these days it offers a lot more than CFML - and it offers a unique combination of well-known speakers and new voices, something the conference has always prided itself on.

So why should you attend this particular year? Every year, our world of web development moves forward at what sometimes may seem like an ever-increasing pace. This is reflected in the sessions every year at cf.Objective(). This year sees an increased focus on JavaScript with topics covering Node.js, Angular, jQuery Mobile, Bootstrap, performance and testing. Even in the CFML topics, we're seeing an increased focus on automation, performance and testing as our community grows. cf.Objective() has always tried to offer material for intermediate and advanced developers and this year we have sessions on concurrency, collaborative code review, A/B testing, advanced scalability and caching techniques. Another big plus this year is the return of Adobe as platinum sponsor with several sessions talking about "Zeus" - ColdFusion 10 - which is currently in public beta.

cf.Objective() is all about helping you "up your game", to become a better developer. That's why you should attend - to become a better developer, to learn about new techniques and new technology.

This year we have ColdFusion 10 and Railo 4 and a lot of CFML developers working across multiple technologies. cf.Objective() will cover all of that so, if you aren't already registered, head over to the cf.Objective() website and get yourself signed up - it'll do you, and your career, a power of good!

November 28th was the last day for session proposals for cf.Objective() 2012. The open call for speakers has been massively successful this year: a record number of proposals from a record number of speakers!

cf.Objective() has always been known for the high quality - and generally advanced level - of presentations and it looks like 2012 will be no exception! I've been involved with this conference in one way or another since the first year (2006) and I've watched it grow from strength to strength every year, with more sessions, more speakers, more attendees. It all started as an "itch" that Jared Rypka-Hauer felt he needed to scratch and a few years back it went global with the addition of cf.Objective(ANZ). In a time when the economy has caused most people to tighten their belts and several CFML events to disappear, it's good to see "The Only Enterprise ColdFusion Conference" powering ahead.

For several years, I was heavily involved in content selection but in 2010 the conference switched to an advisory board for that job and for 2011, I stepped down completely and became just an observer for the steering committee. Given the huge number of proposals this year, I'm very glad of that role change and I don't envy the job of Bob Silverberg and his team - they have a lot of work ahead of them!

I have no details on the content but I think you can count on it being excellent... If you didn't get a proposal in, there's always next year. If you did get a proposal in but you're not selected, don't feel bad: competition is stiffer than ever!

And me? I didn't think of a suitable talk before the deadline so no cf.Objective() for me in 2012. After ten conferences in 2011 (and I spoke at four of those), I could do with a break anyway :)

The call for speakers for cf.Objective() 2012 is now open. You can either submit proposals for something you'd like to talk about or make suggestions for topics you'd like to see someone else talk about.

Right now, I don't know whether I'll submit any proposals. I'm not sure what topics I'd like to promote. I don't want to do another "Intro to FW/1" (but I'd be very happy to see others continue to promote FW/1 - and I'd hope someone will mention DI/1 alongside FW/1!) and most of the non-FW/1 stuff I've been doing has been Clojure, at least in terms of open source projects. If you have ideas for something you'd really like me to submit a proposal on, let me know!

The venue (unchanged from 2011) and dates (still mid-May) have just been announced for cf.Objective() 2012! Based on this year's success, this will be the CF event to attend, if you can only make one conference a year!

This year's cf.Objective() was the biggest, most successful ever: more attendees, more speakers, more tracks, more content, more sponsors, lightning talks, BOFs, ad hoc sessions - more, more, more! Yet it still managed to maintain the great ratio of attendees to speakers that gives people a small conference feel with great networking opportunities.

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Now that I've given both of my presentations at this year's cf.Objective() - which was an awesome conference, BTW! - I have posted them both to the "Presentations" page on my blog.

Functional Programming: What is it and why should I care? - my one hour introductory talk from Saturday morning, showing Clojure and some functional style CFML.

Multi-Tenant, Multi-Lingual Architecture for Software as a Service - my two hour deep dive from Friday afternoon.

Now that the online scheduler is available, I've been picking the sessions I'll be attending at cf.Objective() 2011

Thursday, May 12, 2011

• 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Room 1 - Keynote (TBD)
• 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM: Room 1 - Making Legacy Code Testable (Emily Christiansen)
• 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Room 1 - ORM Zen (Marc Esher)
• 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM: Room 5 - ColdSpring 2.0 Alpha 1 "What's New and Improved" (Mark Mandel)
• 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Room 5 - Forms That Don't Suck (Quick, Easy, & Clean Forms and Data) (Matt Quackenbush)
• 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM: Room 3 - Implementing an In-Memory Distributed Cache Using ColdSpring AOP and Ehcache (Adam Bellas)

Friday, May 13, 2011

• 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Room 2 - Introduction to Browser Automation and Testing with Selenium (Bob Silverberg)
• 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM: Room 2 - Web Single Sign-On and ColdFusion (Adam Crump)
• 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Room 5 - Simple MVC with FW/1 (Daria Norris)
• 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM: Room 1 - Holistic Program Quality and Technical Debt (Nathan Strutz)
• 3:00 PM - 5:15 PM: Room 1 - Deep Dive: Multi-Tenant, Multi-Lingual Web Platforms - Software as a Service (Sean Corfield)

Saturday, May 14, 2011

• 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Room 1 - What is Functional Programming? (and why should I care?) (Sean Corfield)
• 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM: Room 1 - Don't Forget About Custom Tags (Steve Bryant)
• 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Room 1 - Getting to Know AntiPatterns (Emily Christiansen)
• 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM: Room 1 - (Abstraction + CF9 ORM) == "Modeled in Minutes" (Matt Quackenbush)
• 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Room 5 - Simplifying Development with ColdFusion on Wheels: An Introduction (Chris Peters)

Some difficult choices there because there are some killer sessions on the schedule!

cf.Objective() has just posted the draft schedule for 2011 and, as always, it's packed full of great sessions. I'm very pleased to announce that I am speaking again this year and I'll be bringing two brand new presentations to the conference:

• Multi-Tenant, Multi-Lingual Web Platforms - Software as a Service
• What is Functional Programming? (and why should I care?)

The former will draw on work I did at Broadchoice, building their SaaS-based CMS platform, and more recently at World Singles, building their new internet dating platform. It will cover some of the challenges such systems provide (and various ways to tackle them). Sacramento CFUG will get an early sneak peek of this talk in a few weeks.

The latter will cover a style of programming that's been around for decades and has seen a massive resurgence lately as concurrency, parallelism and efficient use of multi-core / multi-CPU machines have become increasingly more important. While the talk will show examples from Clojure and Scala, I will also show how some of functional programming's powerful idioms can be used in CFML!

Both cf.Objective() and OpenCF Summit have their call for speakers/proposals open at the moment. Bob Silverberg talks about the cf.Objective() CfP on his blog and you can read about the OpenCF Summit CfP on their blog.

The important thing to note in both cases is that there are calls open: suggestions and proposals. The suggestions page is where you make suggestions about topics you'd like to see at the conference. The proposals page is where you submit yourself as a speaker and describe your proposed topic. Even if you've submitted a suggestion for a topic you'd like to present, you still need to submit a proposal in order to be considered as a speaker!

You need to connect with either your Twitter or Facebook account in order to submit suggestions or proposals - welcome to the social media era! - and proposals are open until early January for both conferences. The OpenCF Summit blog has lots of background information on the "engage" application in use by both conferences, as well as doing a great job of explaining what the OpenCF Summit is all about (hey, you already know what cf.Objective() is all about, right?).

I've been closely involved with cf.Objective() since it started back in 2006. Yes, it's been going for five years now! When Jared started complaining to me, in 2005, about the lack of ColdFusion conferences in the middle of the country, I said "Don't complain, do something about it!". That exchange led to a small (100 people) event in an interesting hotel near the Mall of America that covered a lot of 'enterprise' level ColdFusion topics. I wrote enthusiastically about cf.Objective() 2006 and plans for cf.Objective() 2007 were in progress almost immediately.

Over the last five years, I've helped put together the agenda for the conference - usually with help (especially Nic Tunney for several years!) but occasionally on my own. It's a lot of work! Last year - 2010 - we tried something different: a content advisory board. It had some pros and some cons and we learned a lot about the dynamics of committees. The consensus was that the CAB was too large and that centralized control was still the most effective way to drive the process forward. After five years of volunteering for cf.Objective(), working on the content of the conference, I need a break. The question was: who should take over the role of leading content organization?

Although not a member of the 2010 CAB, one of our speakers was particularly helpful and proactive, organizing the Pecha Kucha and running surveys etc to help shape the Birds of a Feather sessions. Based on his contributions to cf.Objective() 2010, I proposed that he head up conference content for 2011. The conference committee agreed and so I am very pleased to announce that I am passing the torch to Bob Silverberg. Bob and I have talked about the processes used over the last few years, the pros and the cons and he has some great ideas for pushing the conference to new heights. I'm looking forward to cf.Objective() 2011! I'm especially looking forward to having a lot more personal time over the next six months!

Bob has posted information about plans for cf.Objective() 2011. will be posting information about his plans for cf.Objective() 2011 shortly - and I'll update this blog post with a link to his blog post on that topic! In the meantime, please join me in thanking Bob for taking on this heroic task - I hope you will all support him in his efforts!

You can also suggest / view topic suggestions for cf.Objective() 2011!