An Architect's View

Another long day, trying to fit regular work in around the conference schedule! As anticipated, I skipped the first session in order to catch up on some sleep. I woke up in time to write some code examples for my Duck Typing talk and was pleased with how that went, for a first time talk (code and PDF already posted - see earlier blog entry). I skipped the keynote (and didn't actually find anyone who had attended it - I'd like to hear about it!) to chat to various folks and then, after lunch, went to Kelly Brown's session on Spry because I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Kelly seemed pretty nervous and went through the framework at a rather slow pace but gave a nice, clear overview of AJAX, explained the Spry libraries and how to use it for master/detail and repeating regions. I downloaded the framework from <labs> during the talk and, with a little help from Kevin Roche (thanx!), got it working with a ColdFusion CFC generating an XML document to drive the Spry data set mechanism. It's pretty slick stuff! Then it was time for the closing session and the Q&A panel, featuring Michael Smith, Shlomy Gantz, Jeff Peters and Ray Camden, MC'd by Simon Horwith. Questions from the audience covered ColdFusion feature wishlists (Ray feels CFMX 7 is pretty complete, Simon wants interfaces and "lots of other stuff"), the impact of podcasts and blogging (which generated lots of praise for Breeze!), which is the best ColdFusion framework (they sensibly didn't touch this although they ventured their own preferences - split about 50/50 between Model-Glue and Fusebox), which is the best AJAX framework (they all picked Adobe's Spry!) and what sort of changes they expect on the 'net within five years (mixed responses on this but a sense of unification of media and a richer experience). Michael started drawing surveys and tickets for the big stack of prizes (books, software and an X-Box 360). I hung around, chatting to folks, until the Adobe crew went out to dinner (at the Hibachi Steak & Sushi House, where the speakers' dinner had been held on Tuesday - highly recommended!). I've love to tell you what we talked about but, hey, I'd have to kill you... Then it was time to hang out in the bar and wind down post-conference. It is kind of strange having an "end" to the conference when there's still one more day - the Saturday repeat sessions. My current plan is to get to every session (i.e., six choices) but so far this week I've ended up getting distracted and missing many sessions.