Mobile Application Development – Tips, Jobs and Skills Interview with Ted Patrcick, Developer Evangelist Barnes and Noble
According to Barnes&Noble. the eReader ecosystem is exploding with opportunity thanks to the growing popularity of eBooks and the emergence of new types of digital content. 2010 has been deemed the year of the eReader by many, with Forrester Research, Inc. estimating explosive growth in eReader and eBook sales in the November 2010 report “eBook Buying Is About To Spiral Upward”.
In this five minute interview, I sat down with Ted Patrick, Developer Evangelist @ Barnes & Noble (formerly of Adobe fame) to learn more about the world’s largest bookseller with 40 million customers and 45,000 bookselling experts at more than 1300 retail outlets in 50 states and tips for developing Mobile Application Development resources for the Nook for practicing and aspiring Web developers and those that teach.
200,000 Appcelerator Titanium Mobile Developers Get Fast Track to Publish Apps for NOOK Color™
Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) September 12, 2011
Appcelerator®, the leading mobile cloud platform for rapidly developing native mobile, desktop, and tablet applications using open web technologies, today announced a partnership with Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Developer program to accelerate the deployment of Appcelerator Titanium™ apps on the award-winning NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet™. The partnership will give Titanium’s 200,000 mobile developers a fast track to publish apps in the NOOK Store™, available to millions of NOOK Color customers. NOOK App developers have had tremendous success selling to NOOK Color’s millions of customers, with many generating substantial revenues.
“Millions of apps have been purchased by NOOK Color customers since we launched NOOK Apps, and our customers are interested in even more,” said Claudia Romanini, Director of Developer Relations, Barnes & Noble. “Appcelerator’s proven mobile development platform and highly successful open mobile developer community are a great fit for the expansion of our NOOK Developer program. We’ll work together to bring NOOK Color customers even more rich and innovative, high-quality NOOK Apps, while developers – through our storefront – will have another strong revenue channel to monetize their apps to our large and rapidly growing audience.”
NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet™ features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ color touchscreen ideal for reading a wide variety of content including books, enhanced books, immersive children’s picture books, interactive magazines, newspapers and more. Built on Android, NOOK Color also offers the most-requested tablet features, including built-in email, an enhanced Web experience and high-quality NOOK Apps. Third-party developers have praised Barnes & Noble’s curated app model, revenue-earning potential, and the ease in which customers can find, try, buy and download apps.
Appcelerator developers will now be able to quickly deploy and offer their apps through Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Store reaching millions of digital customers. Titanium developers will enjoy expedited submission of their apps for the NOOK Developer program. Titanium developers’ submissions will be automatically qualified and fast-tracked for review. Appcelerator has also updated its reference applications, documentation, and platform to easily integrate the NOOK Color SDK into Titanium Studio, Appcelerator’s enterprise-grade IDE used by over 1.5 million web developers.
Noted Scott Ellison, Vice President of Mobile & Consumer Platform, IDC Research, “The NOOK proves that there is a large market for quality, reasonably priced Android tablets that have a premium user experience tailor-made to a well-defined audience. With a focus on world-class user experience capabilities, Appcelerator Titanium will provide a solid complement to the types of applications that fit NOOK’s lifestyle focus.”
“Barnes & Noble has created a highly acclaimed offering and impressive customer base for its Android-based NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet,” said Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator. “As the world’s largest cross-platform developer community, we are delighted to partner with the NOOK Developer team to help connect Appcelerator’s global developer community with Barnes & Noble’s digital storefront, driving even more downloads and traction for NOOK Color.”
Barnes & Noble will participate at Appcelerator’s CODESTRONG 2011 developers conference in San Francisco later this month. The NOOK Developer team is presenting a breakout session on developing apps for NOOK Color on September 19. The meeting will offer Titanium developers a deep dive into leveraging Titanium Studio to develop applications for NOOK Color and cover the entire development process from app creation to the app submission process. The CODESTRONG conference will bring together Titanium mobile developers from around the world for 25+ keynotes and sessions at the InterContinental Hotel San Francisco on September 18-20. For more information about attending, visit http://www.codestrong.com.
About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like™ with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Bookstore™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. The award-winning NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet™, the best-value on the tablet market ($249), features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. The NOOK Simple Touch Reader™ ($139), is the easiest-to-use 6-inch touch reader, with the longest battery life of any eReader. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOK Books™ for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe® technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at http://www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Books-A-Million, OfficeMax, Fred Meyer, and P.C. Richard & Son stores.
In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at http://www.bn.com/freenookapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™ smartphones and tablets BlackBerry®, PC and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study™ (http://www.nookstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids™ (http://www.nookkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en español™ (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.
For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday™ NOOK Books and more, follow us on http://www.twitter.com/ebooksbn and http://www.facebook.com/nookbn.
ABOUT BARNES & NOBLE, INC.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 704 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 635 college bookstores serving over 4.6 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through BN.com, one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (http://www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read digital books and content on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK devices, partner company products, and the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
About Appcelerator
Appcelerator is the leading enterprise-grade, cross-platform development solution on the market today, with over 1.5 million developers using its software to power over 25,000 cloud-connected mobile, desktop, and web applications used by tens of millions of users every day. The company’s flagship offering, Appcelerator Titanium, is the only mobile cloud platform to enable fully native, cross-platform development, from a single codebase, at web development speed for these three platforms. Appcelerator’s customers can leverage their existing skills and open, industry standard technologies to decrease time-to-market and development costs, increase customer adoption and revenues, and enjoy greater flexibility and control. For more information, please visit http://www.appcelerator.com.
Appcelerator is a registered trademark of Appcelerator Inc. Appcelerator Titanium is a trademark of Appcelerator Inc. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
2011 Mobile Innovators Announced at Adobe Max 2011, LA
MobileInnovators.org announced that (7) leading Mobile Innovation organizations have been chosen as the 2011 “Mobile Innovators of the Year” for their support for the Web professional community. The award winners — a combination of software, hardware and technology companies were recognized by panel of industry professionals during the annual Adobe Max 2011 conference that took place October 2-4, 2011 in Los Angeles, CA.
Adobe MAX brings together top designers, developers and business minds in the industry to celebrate, explore and shape the future of digital experiences and stay at the forefront of the multi screen revolution. “Developing Web applications provides countless opportunities for Web professionals to monetize their work, a key mission for the association of Web professionals and we are pleased to recognize these Mobile Innovator Rock Stars” said, Bill Cullifer, Executive Director Webprofessionals.org and the MobileInnovators.org education initiative.
The 2011 “Mobile Innovators” at the Adobe MAX event were chosen by a committee comprised of representatives from publishing, Web design professional training, mobile application development, academia and not for profit professional association Webprofessionals.org.
Mobile Innovation, Cell phone and wireless laptop internet use have each grown more prevalent over the last year. According to Pew Research Center, nearly half of all adults (47%) go online with a laptop using a Wi-Fi connection or mobile broadband card (up from the 39% who did so as of April 2009) while 40% of adults use the internet, email or instant messaging on a mobile phone (up from the 32% of Americans who did this in 2009). This means that 59% of adults now access the internet wirelessly using a laptop or portable device.
WebProfessionals.org is a non-profit professional association dedicated to the support of individuals and organizations who create, manage or market web sites. WOW provides education as well as certification, technical, employment and member advantage services to thousands of aspiring and practicing web professionals and those that teach Web professional topics worldwide. http://webprofessionals.org .
About MobileInnovators.org
MobileInnovators.org is an online resource for Mobile Innovators and Mobile Application Developers providing daily news, podcast, interviews and hundreds of training videos for aspiring and practicing Mobile Applications Developers and those that teach. http://mobileinnovators.org
About Adobe MAX
Adobe MAX is a unique opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, and business leaders as we shape the future of digital media together.
Discover how to realize the full potential of your content and applications. Find new opportunities presented by rich experiences across screens. Explore new methods for monetizing content. Learn about innovative technologies that enable designers and developers to work together more effectively
Adobe MAX 2011 Focuses on Tools for for Web Designers and Web Developers – Interviews, Video’s and Event Media Coverage
To get a perspective for what the first day of the Adobe MAX 2011 event will mean for Web professionals, I sat down with Mark DuBois, Professor Illinois Central College and WOW’s Director of Education.
In this two minute interview, Mark shares his thoughts on the value proposition of the event and what it will mean for Web professionals.
I am also enclosing some of Mark’s notes and a video’s of the events keynote.
Video of the Opening Day
Initial review of yesterday’s keynote.
Today development experience.
Absolutely pivotal and important. Content must be interactive. Developers bring content to life.
Odapod, Fluid ? HTML and development
HTML5 app stores and on web. Both Flash and HTML are cross platform technologies. Too expensive to create separate solutions for
different endpoints.
HTML innovation surging.
Adobe betting on HTML5 ? important platform. Continuing to invest in Flash. Released Flash Player 11 and AIR 3.0
These show investment in Flash. Drive expressiveness. Bring what learned into HTML.
Partners ? Google, MS, Apple. jQuery, W3C ? code contributions to webkit and jQuery. Also creating tools like Edge.
Progress on HTML5 and Flash.
Mobile apps ? Ben Forta
Skills there to build native apps ? DW CS 5.5 with PhoneGap demo ? HTML, CSS, JS (including jQuery)
Building native .apk using PhoneGap.
Adobe acquiring PhoneGap
Andre Charland ? PhoneGap
Travelocity app demo
Orbium game using canvas element
Untapped ? social network for beer drinkers
PhoneGap build ? compile in cloud ? http://build.phonegap.com
Included in creative cloud description.
Flash based apps ? touch apps ? built in Flash ? great examples of what you can do.
Gaming ? in browser app ? Machinarium
Day app deployed on app store ? number one app. Being deployed on Droid ? no code changes at all
Business apps ? Johnson Controls
Social example ? USA Network ? 70% of tablet viewers are surfing web as watching show ? share experiences as watch show
Built in Flash and AIR ? build on one platform and push out to multiple. All about cost and time. Reach more devices.
AIR 3 ? captive runtime ? download runtime and install apps. Smaller app with shared runtime. iPhone ? embedded in app itself. Droid also
want ability to choose. Now a checkbox in build process.
Native extensions ? want to take advantage of what hardware manufacturers provide. Wrap AS class around native code.
Sony P tablet ? two screens ? use each screen differently.
Flash Builder 4.6 prerelease available
Targeting Windows Metro in future.
WWW ? deliver best tools for web development
Edge for animations.
Flash Player 11 ? next generation of web ? Paul Gubbay ? VP of engineering, web and design
So many technologies and frameworks ? where to get started.
Great browsers, great frameworks, great tools ? need all three
Tools ? Edge prototype last year. Web Standards. Got it out early and define feature set. Preview 1 on Aug. 1 ? 50,000 downloads.
150,000 downloads ? preview 3 of Adobe Edge available today. Mark Anders ? Adobe Fellow
Rain Interactive ? released game ? Run Kitty Run, the adventures of Timmy.
Frameworks ? jQuery and jQuery Mobile ? had team contributing to jQuery Mobile. Also working in DW
Theming model ? robust CSS. Visual tool ? Theme roller for jQuery Mobile.
Fireworks ? update pack for FW ? get control to icons used in jQuery mobile.
CSS Regions and CSS Exclusions discussed. Hidden costs pie chart demo.
IE 10 supports CSS regions
When can I use? Ian Ellison?Taylor at Google
CSS regions appealed to everyone. Obvious need. Pushed through in Chromium browser. Can use today.
Flash ? Pixel Bender in browser using CSS ? CSS shaders
CSS shaders studio ? just submitted to W3C
2D 3D graphics and animation ? Emmy Huang ? group product manager Adobe Gaming
Leverage GPU across devices.
Starling ? leverage low level API calls. Flash Professional (Reuben)
Create Sprite Sheets directly form within Flash
Adobe MAX Keynote Day 1 – Interview and Event Summary with Janine Warner, Author and Web Designer at DigitalFamily.com
Adobe promised to unleash some creativity at the annual event for Web designers, developers and business pro’s and they delivered. To get a perspective for what the first day’s event meant for Web professionals, I sat down with Janine Warner, Author and Web designer at DigitalFamily.com. Janine, is an excellent communicator and provides key insights on the value proposition and job opportunities for Web professionals.
The day one keynote explored some of the latest technology trends and how they are impacting Adobe tools and solutions.
Highlights of the keynote:
- The major announcement was the unveiling of Adobe® Creative Cloud, a new initiative from the company that redefines the content creation process. Over time, Adobe Creative Cloud will become a focal point for the worldwide creative community, where creative professionals can access desktop and tablet applications and essential creative services, as well as share their best work.
- As part of this exciting announcement, MAX attendees will receive a complimentary year of an Adobe Creative Cloud membership.* The membership is expected to start in the first half of 2012 and coincide with the availability of Adobe Creative Cloud. MAX attendees will be contacted early next week with more details. *Certain limitations may apply.
- The introduction of Adobe Touch Apps, a new family of intuitive touch screen applications designed for Android™ tablets and Apple iPad that enable anyone to explore ideas and present their creativity anytime, anywhere. Inspired by the Creative Suite, these stunning new apps bring professional-level creativity to millions of tablet users. Learn more about the first six exciting new apps today:
“Usability doesn’t have to be complicated and almost anyone can do it says” Steve Krug, Author and Web usability consultant at Advanced Common Sense.
“Anyone who’s ever watched a usability test knows that they work remarkably well. Sitting someone down and having them use what you’re building while you watch is the best way to ensure that it will actually be usable. And yet very few organizations do usability tests. And the ones that do don’t do them very often. Why? It’s simple: most people think usability tests are expensive, time consuming, and hard to do” says Krug.
"Usabilty doesn't have to be complicated" Interview with Steve KrugDownload
A special shout out to Steve for his support for the Web professional community and for being the great guy that he is.
More About Steve Krug
After a decade writing computer manuals, in 1989 Steve Krug (pronounced “kroog”) moved up the food chain to usability testing and interface design so he could fix the problems instead of explaining them.
Since then, he’s evaluated and improved interfaces for a wide variety of clients, primarily in online services and the Web, including Apple, AOL, Netscape, the late, lamented Excite@Home, BarnesandNoble.com, Lexus.com, and Circle.com (originally Interactive Bureau).
His consulting firm, Advanced Common Sense (“just me and a few well-placed mirrors”) is based in Chestnut Hill, MA.
He currently spends most of his time reviewing existing sites and designs for new sites, conducting usability workshops, and helping clients resolve thorny interface problems. Check out Steve’s website at http://www.sensible.com/
Steve’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug: Usability Demo YouTube.com
Chances are if you’ve been in the Web space for awhile, then you’re familiar with ColdFusion from the early 1990’s. With the goal of providing you with an overview of the various development options available to Web developers and to update you with the latest resources available, I reached out to Matt Gifford, aka coldfumonkeh, Lead Developer with Fuzzy Orange Ltd. Matt specializes in ColdFusion, Flex and AIR development.
In this five minute interview, Matt shares is views on the benefits of developing in Cold Fusion and the size and scope of the “800,000 developer” community.
“Cold Fusion is the best development language out there and the Cold Fusion community is the friendliest and the most helpful” says Matt.
A special shout out to Matt for his support for the Web professional community and for being the great guy that he is.
More about Matt
Matt is the author of “Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion”, published by PackT publishing. He presents regularly at national and international conferences, user groups and online meetings, and has written tutorials and articles for online resources and leading UK industry magazines.
As an Adobe Community Professional for ColdFusion, Matt is a keen proponent for community resources and sharing knowledge. He regularly writes and releases open source ColdFusion applications and code samples, and loves a fresh Starbucks latte.
According to Wikipedia, in computing, ColdFusion is used to refer to both a commercial rapid application development platform invented by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in 1995, and the programming language used with that platform. Originally designed to make it easier to connect simple HTML pages to a database, by version 2 (1996) it had become a full platform that included an IDE in addition to a “full” scripting language. As of 2010, versions of ColdFusion (purchased by Adobe Systems in 2005) include advanced features for enterprise integration and development of rich Internet applications.
Overview
One of the distinguishing features of ColdFusion is its associated scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), which compares to the scripting components of ASP, JSP, and PHP in purpose and features, but its tag syntax more closely resembles HTML while its script syntax resembles JavaScript. “ColdFusion” is often used synonymously with “CFML” or “CFM”, but there are additional CFML application servers besides ColdFusion, and ColdFusion supports programming languages other than CFML, such as server-side Actionscript and embedded scripts that can be written in a JavaScript-like language known as CFScript.
Originally a product of Allaire and released in July 1995, ColdFusion was developed by brothers Joseph J. “JJ” and Jeremy Allaire. In 2001 Allaire was acquired by Macromedia, who in turn were acquired by Adobe Systems Inc in 2005.
ColdFusion is most often used for data-driven websites or intranets, but can also be used to generate remote services such as SOAP web services or Flash remoting. It is especially well-suited as the server-side technology to the client-side Flex.
ColdFusion can also handle asynchronous events such as SMS and instant messaging via its gateway interface, available in ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition.
Main features
ColdFusion provides a number of additional features out of the box. Among them:
Simplified database access
Client and server cache management
Client-side code generation, especially for form widgets and validation
Conversion from HTML to PDF and FlashPaper
Data retrieval from common enterprise systems such as Active Directory, LDAP, SMTP, POP, HTTP, FTP, Microsoft Exchange Server and common data formats such as RSS and Atom
File indexing and searching service based on Verity K2
GUI administration
Server, application, client, session, and request scopes
XML parsing, querying (XPath), validation and transformation (XSLT)
Server clustering
Task scheduling
Graphing and reporting
Simplified file manipulation including raster graphics (and CAPTCHA) and zip archives (introduction of video manipulation is planned in a future release)
Simplified web service implementation (with automated WSDL generation / transparent SOAP handling for both creating and consuming services – as an example, ASP.NET[1] has no native equivalent for [2])
Other implementations of CFML offer similar or enhanced functionality, such as running in a .NET environment or image manipulation.
The engine was written in C and featured, among other things, a built-in scripting language (CFScript), plugin modules written in Java, and a syntax very similar to HTML. The equivalent to an HTML element, a ColdFusion tag begins with the letters “CF” followed by a name that is indicative of what the tag is interpreted to, in HTML. E.g. to begin the output of variables or other content.
In addition to CFScript and plugins (as described), CFStudio provided a design platform with a WYSIWYG display. In addition to ColdFusion, CFStudio also supports syntax in other languages popular for backend programming, such as Perl. In addition to making backend functionality easily available to the non-programmer, (version 4.0 and forward in particular) integrated easily with the Apache Web Server and with Internet Information Services.
[edit] Other features
The first version of ColdFusion (then called Cold Fusion) was released on July 10, 1995. This first version was written almost entirely by one person, Joseph JJ Allaire. Primitive by modern standards, early versions of ColdFusion did little more than database access.[1]
All versions of ColdFusion prior to 6.0 were written using Microsoft Visual C++. This meant that ColdFusion was largely limited to running on Microsoft Windows, although Allaire did successfully port ColdFusion to Sun Solaris starting with version 3.1.
The Allaire company was sold to Macromedia, then to Adobe. Earlier versions were not as robust as the versions available from version 4.0 forward.
With the release of ColdFusion MX 6.0, the engine had been re-written in Java and supported its own runtime environment, which was easily replaced through its configuration options with the runtime environment from Sun. Version 6.1 included the ability to code and debug Shockwave Flash.
[edit] Release history
1995: Allaire Cold Fusion version 1.0
1996: Allaire Cold Fusion version 1.5
1996: Allaire Cold Fusion version 2.0
1997-June: Allaire Cold Fusion version 3.0
1998-January: Allaire Cold Fusion version 3.1
1998-November: Allaire ColdFusion version 4.0 (space eliminated between Cold and Fusion to make it ColdFusion)
1999-November: Allaire ColdFusion version 4.5
2001-June: Macromedia ColdFusion version 5.0
2002-May: Macromedia ColdFusion MX version 6.0 (build 6,0,0,48097), Updater 1 (build 6,0,0,52311), Updater 2 (build 6,0,0,55693), Updater 3 (build 6,0,0,58500)
2003-July: Macromedia ColdFusion MX version 6.1 (build 6,1,0,63958), hot fix (6,1,0,xxxxx), Updater 1 (build 6,1,0,83762)
2005-February-07: Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 (build 7,0,0,91690)
2005-September-27: Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7.0.1 (build 7,0,1,116466)
2006-June-28: Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 (build 7,0,2,142559)
2007-July-30: Adobe ColdFusion 8 (build 8,0,0,176276)
2008-April-03: Adobe ColdFusion 8.0.1 (build 8,0,1,195765)
2009-October-05: Adobe ColdFusion 9 (build 9,0,0,251028)
2010-July-13: Adobe ColdFusion 9.0.1 (build 9,0,1,274733)
Versions
[edit] Cold Fusion 3.1
Version 3.1 brought about a port to the Sun Solaris operating system. Cold Fusion studio gained a live page preview and HTML syntax checker.
[edit] ColdFusion 4
“Cold Fusion” moniker renamed simply as “ColdFusion” – possibly to distinguish it from Cold fusion theory.
[edit] ColdFusion 4.5
Version 4.5 brought the ability to natively invoke Java objects, execute system commands, and talk directly to a Java EE server.
[edit] ColdFusion 5
First release from Macromedia after the Allaire Corporation acquisition. The last to be legacy coded for a specific platform.
On January 16, 2001, Allaire announced a pending merger with Macromedia. Macromedia continued its development and released the product under the name ColdFusion 5.0. It retained the name “ColdFusion” through the remainder of version 5 releases.
[edit] ColdFusion MX 6
Prior to 2000, Allaire began a project codenamed “Neo”. This project was later revealed as a ColdFusion Server re-written completely using Java. This made portability easier and provided a layer of security on the server, because it ran inside a Java Runtime Environment. Senior software engineer Damon Cooper, still with Adobe on the LiveCycle team, was the major initiator of the Java move.
In June 2002 Macromedia released the version 6.0 product under a slightly different name, ColdFusion MX, allowing the product to be associated with both the Macromedia brand and its original branding. ColdFusion MX was completely rebuilt from the ground up and was based on the Java EE platform. ColdFusion MX was also designed to integrate well with Macromedia Flash using Flash Remoting.
With the release of ColdFusion MX, the CFML language API was released with an OOP interface.
[edit] ColdFusion MX 7
With the release of ColdFusion 7.0 on February 7, 2005, the naming convention was amended, rendering the product name “Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7″. CFMX 7 added Flash-based, and XForms-based, web forms and a report builder that output in Adobe PDF as well as FlashPaper, RTF and Excel. The Adobe PDF output is also available as a wrapper to any HTML page, converting that page to a quality printable document. The enterprise edition also added Gateways. These provide interaction with non-HTTP request services such as IM Services, SMS, Directory Watchers, and an asynchronous execution. XML support was boosted in this version to include native schema checking.
ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, codenamed “Mystic” includes advanced features for working with Adobe Flex 2.
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion 8
On July 30, 2007, Adobe Systems released ColdFusion 8, dropping “MX” from its name. During beta testing the codename used was “Scorpio” (the eighth sign of the zodiac and the eighth iteration of ColdFusion as a commercial product). More than 14,000 developers worldwide were active in the beta process – many more testers than the 5,000 Adobe Systems originally expected. The ColdFusion development team consisted of developers based in Newton/Boston, Massachusetts and offshore in Bangalore, India.
Some of the new features are the CFPDFFORM tag, which enables integration with Adobe Acrobat forms, some image manipulation functions, Microsoft .NET integration, and the CFPRESENTATION tag, which allows the creation of dynamic presentations using Adobe Acrobat Connect, the Web-based collaboration solution formerly known as Macromedia Breeze. In addition, the ColdFusion Administrator for the Enterprise version ships with built-in server monitoring. ColdFusion 8 is available on several operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows Server 2003.
Other additions to ColdFusion 8 are built-in Ajax widgets, file archive manipulation (CFZIP), Microsoft Exchange server integration (CFEXCHANGE), image manipulation including automatic captcha generation (CFIMAGE), multi-threading, per-application settings, Atom and RSS feeds, reporting enhancements, stronger encryption libraries, array and structure improvements, improved database interaction, extensive performance improvements, PDF manipulation and merging capabilities (CFPDF), interactive debugging, embedded database support with Apache Derby, and a more ECMAScript compliant CFSCRIPT.
For development of ColdFusion applications, several tools are available: primarily Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Macromedia HomeSite 5.x, CFEclipse, Eclipse and others. “Tag updaters” are available for these applications to update their support for the new ColdFusion 8 features.
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion 9
ColdFusion 9 (Codenamed: Centaur) was released on October 5, 2009. New features for CF9 include:
Ability to code ColdFusion Components (CFCs) entirely in CFScript.
An explicit “local” scope that does not require local variables to be declared at the top of the function.
Implicit getters/setters for CFC.
Implicit constructors via method called “init” or method with same name as CFC.
New CFFinally tag for Exception handling syntax and CFContinue tag for Control flow.
Object-relational mapping (ORM) Database integration through Hibernate (Java).
Server.cfc file with onServerStart and onServerEnd methods.
Tighter integration with Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR.
Integration with key Microsoft products including Word, Excel, Sharepoint, Exchange and Powerpoint.
In Memory Management – or Virtual File System – an ability to treat content in memory as opposed to using the HDD.
Exposed as Services – an ability to access, securely, functions of the server externally.
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion 10
ColdFusion version 10 was confirmed to be in-work by Adobe at Adobe MAX 2010. The internal codename for the next release of ColdFusion is “Zeus”, but it is commonly referred to as ColdFusion X in blogs, on Twitter, etc.
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion Builder
Main article: Adobe ColdFusion Builder
Adobe ColdFusion Builder is the name for Adobe’s Eclipse based development IDE that can be used to build applications for ColdFusion. The product’s original codename, “Bolt,” is a reference to the original lightning icon for the product from the Allaire days.
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion Builder 1.0
ColdFusion Builder became available on 22 March 2010 along with Flash Builder 4.[2]
Features include:
Object Relational Mapping auto-configuration
Application Code Generation
Server management
Easily extensible through the Eclipse framework
CFML, HTML, Javascript, and CSS Syntax Highlighting
Code assist for tags, functions, variables, and components
Code folding
Snippet creation and management
Outline viewing
RDS Explorer for files and databases
Line-level Debugging
Refactoring
[edit] Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2.0
ColdFusion Builder 2.0 (codename “Storm”) was confirmed and previewed at Adobe MAX 2010 by Adobe. Major features include improved code navigation, searching improvements, code formatting and automatic method stub creation.
[edit] Features
[edit] Rich forms
ColdFusion Server includes a subset of its Macromedia Flex 1.5 technology. Its stated purpose is to allow for rich forms in HTML pages using CFML to generate Flash movies. These Flash forms can be used to implement rich internet applications, but with limited efficiency due to the ActionScript restrictions in place on Flash forms by Macromedia.
Flash forms also provide additional widgets for data input, such as date pickers and data grids.
In previous versions of ColdFusion, some form validation and additional widgets were available using a combination of Java applets and JavaScript. This option persists for those who do not wish to use Flash, however not all features are supported.
An example:
ColdFusion also includes some XForms capability, and the ability to “skin” forms using XSLT.
[edit] PDF and FlashPaper generation
ColdFusion can generate PDF or FlashPaper documents using standard HTML (i.e. no additional coding is needed to generate documents for print). CFML authors simply place HTML and CSS within a pair of cfdocument tags and specify the desired format (FlashPaper or PDF). The generated document can then either be saved to disk or sent to the client’s browser. ColdFusion 8 has now introduced the cfpdf tag which allows for unprecedented control over PDF documents including PDF forms, and merging of PDFs. These tags however do not use Adobe’s PDF engine but a combination of the commercial JPedal Java PDF library and the free and open source Java library iText.
[edit] ColdFusion Components (Objects)
ColdFusion was originally not an object-oriented programming language similar to PHP prior to PHP 3. ColdFusion falls into the category of OO languages that do not support multiple inheritance (along with Java, Smalltalk, etc.).[3] With the MX release (6+), ColdFusion introduced basic oo functionality with the component language construct which resembles classes in OO languages. Each component may contain any number of properties and methods. One component may also extend another (Inheritance). Components only support single inheritance. Object handling feature set and performance enhancing has occurred with subsequent releases. With the release of ColdFusion 8, Java-style interfaces are supported. ColdFusion components use the file extension cfc to differentiate them from ColdFusion templates (.cfm).
[edit] Remoting
Component methods may be made available as web services with no additional coding and configuration. All that is required is for a method’s access to be declared ‘remote’. ColdFusion automatically generates a WSDL at the URL for the component in this manner: http://path/to/components/Component.cfc?wsdl. Aside from SOAP, the services are offered in Flash Remoting binary format.
Methods which are declared remote may also be invoked via an HTTP GET or POST request. Consider the GET request as shown.
This will invoke the component’s search function, passing “your query” and “strict” as arguments.
This type of invocation is well-suited for Ajax-enabled applications. ColdFusion 8 introduced the ability to serialize ColdFusion data structures to JSON for consumption on the client.
The ColdFusion server will automatically generate documentation for a component if you navigate to its URL and insert the appropriate code within the component’s declarations. This is an application of component introspection, available to developers of ColdFusion components. Access to a component’s documentation requires a password. A developer can view the documentation for all components known to the ColdFusion server by navigating to the ColdFusion URL. This interface resembles the Javadoc HTML documentation for Java classes.
[edit] Custom tags
ColdFusion provides several ways to implement custom markup language tags, i.e. those not included in the core ColdFusion language. These are especially useful for providing a familiar interface for web designers and content authors familiar with HTML but not imperative programming.
The traditional and most common way is using CFML. A standard CFML page can be interpreted as a tag, with the tag name corresponding to the file name prefixed with “cf_”. For example, the file IMAP.cfm can be used as the tag “cf_imap”. Attributes used within the tag are available in the ATTRIBUTES scope of the tag implementation page. CFML pages are accessible in the same directory as the calling page, via a special directory in the ColdFusion web application, or via a CFIMPORT tag in the calling page. The latter method does not necessarily require the “cf_” prefix for the tag name.
A second way is the development of CFX tags using Java or C++. CFX tags are prefixed with “cfx_”, for example “cfx_imap”. Tags are added to the ColdFusion runtime environment using the ColdFusion administrator, where JAR or DLL files are registered as custom tags.
Finally, ColdFusion supports JSP tag libraries from the JSP 2.0 language specification. JSP tags are included in CFML pages using the CFIMPORT tag.
Currently, alternative server platforms generally support ColdFusion 8 functionality, with minor changes or feature enhancements.
[edit] Interactions with other programming languages
[edit] ColdFusion and Java
The standard ColdFusion installation allows the deployment of ColdFusion as a WAR file or EAR file for deployment to standalone application servers, such as Macromedia JRun, and IBM WebSphere. ColdFusion can also be deployed to servlet containers such as Apache Tomcat and Mortbay Jetty but, because these platforms do not officially support ColdFusion, they leave many of its features inaccessible.
Because ColdFusion is a Java EE application, ColdFusion code can be mixed with Java classes to create a variety of applications and use existing Java libraries. ColdFusion has access to all underlying Java classes, supports JSP custom tag libraries, and can access JSP functions after retrieving the JSP page context (GetPageContext()).
Prior to ColdFusion 7.0.1, ColdFusion components could only be used by Java or .NET by declaring them as web services. However, beginning in ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, ColdFusion components can now be used directly within Java classes using the CFCProxy class.[4]
Recently, there has been much interest in Java development using alternate languages such as Jython, Groovy and JRuby. ColdFusion was one of the first scripting platforms to allow this style of Java development.
[edit] ColdFusion and .NET
ColdFusion 8 natively supports .NET within the CFML syntax. ColdFusion developers can simply call any .NET assembly without needing to recompile or alter the assemblies in any way. Data types are automatically translated between ColdFusion and .NET (example: .NET DataTable ? ColdFusion Query).
A unique feature for a Java EE vendor, ColdFusion 8 offers the ability to access .NET Assemblies remotely through proxy (without the use of .NET Remoting). This allows ColdFusion users to leverage .NET without having to be installed on a Windows operating system.
The move to include .NET support in addition to the existing support for Java, CORBA and COM is a continuation of Adobe ColdFusion’s agnostic approach to the technology stack. ColdFusion can not only bring together disparate technologies within the enterprise, but can make those technologies available to a number of clients beyond the web browser including, but not limited to, the Flash Player, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), Mobile devices (SMS), Acrobat Reader (PDF) and IM gateways.
[edit] Acronyms
The acronym for the ColdFusion Markup Language is CFML. When ColdFusion templates are saved to disk, they are traditionally given the extension .cfm or .cfml. The .cfc extension is used for ColdFusion Components. The original extension was DBM or DBML, which stood for Database Markup Language. When talking about ColdFusion, most users use the acronym CF and this is used for numerous ColdFusion resources such as user groups (CFUGs) and sites.
CFMX is the common abbreviation for ColdFusion versions 6 and 7 (aka ColdFusion MX).
[edit] Alternative server environments
ColdFusion originated as proprietary technology based on Web technology industry standards. However, it is becoming a less closed technology through the availability of competing products. Products include Railo, BlueDragon, IgniteFusion, SmithProject and Coral Web Builder.
The argument can be made that ColdFusion is even less platform-bound than raw Java EE or .NET, simply because ColdFusion will run on top of a .NET app server (New Atlanta), or on top of any servlet container or Java EE application server (JRun, WebSphere, JBoss, Geronimo, Tomcat, Resin Server, Jetty (web server), etc.). In theory, a ColdFusion application could be moved unchanged from a Java EE application server to a .NET application server.
Rethinking User Research and Usability Testing for the Social Web – Interview with Dana Chisnell, usabiltyworks.net.
Whether it’s software, a cell phone, a website or a refrigerator, your customer wants no, expects your product to be easy to use.
“While the Web has evolved from flat documents to being fluidly ambient, we’re using the same user research and usability testing methods and techniques we were using in 1994″ says Dana Chisnell, author, speaker and Usabilty guru and usabiltyworks.net.
In this five minute interview with Dana, she talks about her upcoming session “Rethinking User Research and Usability Testing for the Social Web,” MIMA Summit, in October. She shares some real world examples and the risk of not getting this right. “We know that conducting usability tests can tell us where people get frustrated” says Dana.
In this four minute interview with Steve Fisher, User Experience Director at yellowpencil.com, Steve shares his thoughts on developing with Drupal, WordPress and Joomla. Steve also responds to questions about the need for designers to understand the development process and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to education.
A shout out to Steve for his contribution to the Web professional community and for taking the time to chat with us.
Since 1996 Webprofessionals.org has been advocating on behalf of interdisciplinary education for Web professionals.
Why is this topic important?
Of all of the career industries, the Web profession requires perhaps the greatest cross-disciplinary interaction and development processes requiring the whole brain (left and right) connections. This is due to the combined skills most sought out by employers today because the work in Web profession requires an element of art and design, technology, business and communication, self management and project management skills. As a result, the organization will continue to support Web professional education by identifying the opportunities, barriers and challenges to interdisciplinary education.
What does Interdisciplinary mean and what are the barriers?
According to Wikipedia Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged.
Originally the term interdisciplinary is applied within education and training pedagogies to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. Interdisciplinarity involves researchers, students, and teachers in the goals of connecting and integrating several academic schools of thought, professions, or technologies – along with their specific perspectives – in the pursuit of a common task. The epidemiology of AIDS or global warming require understanding of diverse disciplines to solve neglected problems. Interdisciplinary may be applied where the subject is felt to have been neglected or even misrepresented in the traditional disciplinary structure of research institutions, for example, women’s studies or ethnic area studies.
The adjective interdisciplinary is most often used in educational circles when researchers from two or more disciplines pool their approaches and modify them so that they are better suited to the problem at hand, including the case of the team-taught course where students are required to understand a given subject in terms of multiple traditional disciplines. For example, the subject of land use may appear differently when examined by different disciplines, for instance, biology, chemistry, economics, geography, and politics.
Development
Although interdisciplinary and interdisciplinarity are frequently viewed as twentieth century terms, the concept has historical antecedents, most notably Greek philosophy. Julie Thompson Klein attests that “the roots of the concepts lie in a number of ideas that resonate through modern discourse—the ideas of a unified science, general knowledge, synthesis and the integration of knowledge” while Giles Gunn says that Greek historians and dramatists took elements from other realms of knowledge (such as medicine or philosophy) to further understand their own material.
Interdisciplinary programs sometimes arise from a shared conviction that the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. For example, social science disciplines such as anthropology and sociology paid little attention to the social analysis of technology throughout most of the twentieth century. As a result, many social scientists with interests in technology have joined science and technology studies programs, which are typically staffed by scholars drawn from numerous disciplines. They may also arise from new research developments, such as nanotechnology, which cannot be addressed without combining the approaches of two or more disciplines. Examples include quantum information processing, an amalgamation of quantum physics and computer science, and bioinformatics, combining molecular biology with computer science. Sustainable Development as a research area deals with problems requiring analysis and synthesis across economic, social and environmental spheres; often an integration of multiple social and natural science disciplines. Some institutions of higher education offer accredited degree programs in Interdisciplinary Studies. Norfolk State University, a historically black institution located in Norfolk, VA, is one such example of this.
At another level interdisciplinarity is seen as a remedy to the harmful effects of excessive specialization. On some views, however, interdisciplinarity is entirely indebted to those who specialize in one field of study—that is, without specialists, interdisciplinarians would have no information and no leading experts to consult. Others place the focus of interdisciplinarity on the need to transcend disciplines, viewing excessive specialization as problematic both epistemologically and politically. When interdisciplinary collaboration or research results in new solutions to problems, much information is given back to the various disciplines involved. Therefore, both disciplinarians and interdisciplinarians may be seen in complementary relation to one another. JaCorey Royal was an excellent academic adventurer in the field of interdisciplinarity.
Barriers
Because most participants in interdisciplinary ventures were trained in traditional disciplines, they must learn to appreciate differing of perspectives and methods. For example, a discipline that places more emphasis on quantitative “rigor” may produce practitioners who think of themselves (and their discipline) as “more scientific” than others; in turn, colleagues in “softer” disciplines may associate quantitative approaches with an inability to grasp the broader dimensions of a problem. An interdisciplinary program may not succeed if its members remain stuck in their disciplines (and in disciplinary attitudes). On the other hand, and from the disciplinary perspective, much interdisciplinary work may be seen as “soft,” lacking in rigor, or ideologically motivated; these beliefs place barriers in the career paths of those who choose interdisciplinary work. For example, interdisciplinary grant applications are often refereed by peer reviewers drawn from established disciplines; not surprisingly, interdisciplinary researchers may experience difficulty getting funding for their research. In addition, untenured researchers know that, when they seek promotion and tenure, it is likely that some of the evaluators will lack commitment to interdisciplinarity. They may fear that making a commitment to interdisciplinary research will increase the risk of being denied tenure.
Interdisciplinary programs may fail if they are not given sufficient autonomy. For example, interdisciplinary faculty are usually recruited to a joint appointment, with responsibilities in both an interdisciplinary program (such as women’s studies) and a traditional discipline (such as history). If the traditional discipline makes the tenure decisions, new interdisciplinary faculty will be hesitant to commit themselves fully to interdisciplinary work. Other barriers include the generally disciplinary orientation of most scholarly journals, leading to the perception, if not the fact, that interdisciplinary research is hard to publish. In addition, since traditional budgetary practices at most universities channel resources through the disciplines, it becomes difficult to account for a given scholar or teacher’s salary and time. During periods of budgetary retraction, the natural tendency to serve the primary constituency (i.e., students majoring in the traditional discipline) makes resources scarce for teaching and research comparatively far from the center of the discipline as traditionally understood. For these same reasons, the introduction of new interdisciplinary programs is often perceived as a competition for diminishing funds, and may for this reason meet resistance.
Due to these and other barriers, interdisciplinary research areas are strongly motivated to become disciplines themselves. If they succeed, they can establish their own research funding programs and make their own tenure and promotion decisions. In so doing, they lower the risk of entry. Examples of former interdisciplinary research areas that have become disciplines include neuroscience, cybernetics, biochemistry and biomedical engineering. These new fields are occasionally referred to as “interdisciplines.” on the other hand, even though interdisciplinary activities are now a focus of attention for institutions promoting learning and teaching, as well as organizational and social entities concerned with education, they are practically facing complex barriers, serious challenges and criticism. The most important obstacles and challenges faced by interdisciplinary activities in the past two decades can be divided into “professional”, “organizational,” and “cultural” obstacles[4].
[edit] Interdisciplinary studies
Interdisciplinary studies is an academic program or process seeking to synthesize broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, interconnections, and epistemology in an educational setting. Interdisciplinary programs may be founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from a single disciplinary perspective (for example, women’s studies or medieval studies). More rarely, and at a more advanced level, interdisciplinarity may itself become the focus of study, in a critique of institutionalized disciplines’ ways of segmenting knowledge.
Perhaps the most common complaint regarding interdisciplinary programs, by supporters and detractors alike, is the lack of synthesis—that is, students are provided with multiple disciplinary perspectives, but are not given effective guidance in resolving the conflicts and achieving a coherent view of the subject. Critics of interdisciplinary programs feel that the ambition is simply unrealistic, given the knowledge and intellectual maturity of all but the exceptional undergraduate; some defenders concede the difficulty, but insist that cultivating interdisciplinarity as a habit of mind, even at that level, is both possible and essential to the education of informed and engaged citizens and leaders capable of analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to render reasoned decisions.
The Politics of Interdisciplinary Studies
Since 1998 there has been an ascendancy in the value of the concept and practice of interdisciplinary research and teaching and a growth in the number of bachelors degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as multi- or interdisciplinary studies. The number of interdisciplinary bachelors degrees awarded annually rose from 7,000 in 1973 to 30,000 a year by 2005 according to data from the National Center of Educational Statistics (NECS). In addition, educational leaders from the Boyer Commission to Carnegie’s President Vartan Gregorian to Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science have advocated for interdisciplinary rather than disciplinary approaches to problem solving in the 21st Century. This has been echoed by federal funding agencies, particularly the NIH under the Direction of Elias Zerhouni, who have advocated that grant proposals be framed more as interdisciplinary collaborative projects than single researcher, single discipline ones. At the same time, longstanding bachelors in interdisciplinary studies programs many existing and thriving for 30 or more years, have been closed down, in spite of healthy enrollment. Examples include Arizona International (formerly part of the University of Arizona), The School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University, and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University; others such as the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University, and George Mason University’s New Century College, have been cut back. Stuart Henry has seen this trend as part of the hegemony of the disciplines in their attempt to recolonize the experimental knowledge production of otherwise marginalized fields of inquiry. This is due to threat perceptions seemingly based on the ascendancy of interdisciplinary studies against traditional academia.
[edit] Historical examples
There are many examples of when a particular idea, almost on the same period, arises in different disciplines. One case is the shift from the approach of focusing on “specialized segments of attention” (adopting one particular perspective), to the idea of “instant sensory awareness of the whole”, an attention to the “total field”, a “sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity”, an “integral idea of structure and configuration”. This has happened in painting (with cubism), physics, poetry, communication and educational theory. According to Marshall McLuhan, this paradigm shift was due to the passage from an era shaped by mechanization, which brought sequentiality, to the era shaped by the instant speed of electricity, which brought simultaneity.[5]
In this thirteen minute interview with Chad Windnagle, Senior Web Developer at s-go Consulting, Chad shares his thoughts on previous post regarding the advantages and disadvantages of developing with Joomla and WordPress.
A shout out to Chad for his contribution to the Web professional community and for being the professional that he is.
Chad Windnagle in “his own” words:
After reading much of the misinformation that was posted by Alec, a creative director of the company Foliovision, on a previous Webprofessionals.org blog post,, I felt the need to respond to the factual references regarding Joomla. I intend to do this without addressing Alec’s opinion. Opinions and preferences aren’t something to be contested, but factual information should always be set straight in the record, that’s what I intend to do.
Alec starts his post by addressing “Joomla” as “Joomla/Mambo” – and that’s just the beginning.
To be fair, Alec is right about Joomla and Mambo being related. That relationship ceased to be when Joomla 1.5 was released. The history of the Joomla project is really interesting, and those of us developers using the product who have ‘been around’ know most of it by heart. I’ll quote Wikipedia’s information on it:
“Joomla was the result of a fork of Mambo on August 17, 2005.” 1
Joomla version 1.0 was essentially a renamed version of Mambo. The code base was the same. However with the release of Joomla 1.5, the code core was a total rewrite, with some legacy code in place to help with migration. Joomla 1.5 Beta was released in September 2006, a little more than a year after the Mambo split. 2
So at this point, a post written in 2011, nearly 6 years after the split and 5 years after a total code rewrite, putting Mambo and Joomla in the same sentence is quite insulting to everyone in both projects. They aren’t related, they are different products.
To add to this, Joomla 1.7 is now the latest short term release of Joomla, and it’s a far cry from Mambo, Joomla 1.0, and Joomla 1.5! I notice that while Alec didn’t seem to do his research on Joomla & Mambo, he acknowledged that WordPress is no longer going by the project name ‘b2/cafelog’ either. (WordPress started as b2/cafelog before being forked in 2003) 9
Moving on to the next point of Alec’s post, he addresses some advantages and disadvantages of Joomla. This is something that can get pretty opinionated, an advantage for one person is another developer’s disadvantage. But there’s some serious problems with both of his lists:
Alec’s Advantages:
Good menu system.
Strong static page structure (cf. weblog).
Built-in membership/community features.
Long time on the market.
I’m searching here.
Joomla’s static page structure might be good, but a majority of the time developers use Joomla’s categorical structure for sites. Joomla 1.0 and 1.5 both featured a Section / Category / Content (or article) hierarchy content structure, not much unlike WordPress’s category structure. Joomla 1.6 introduced the category and unlimited subcategory concept as well.
Moving on, Alec talks about built in membership / community features. To this I have to say “what the hell?!”. Joomla does not have built in membership or community features. It has a user manager with some built in user access settings. But it is certainly not a membership system or a community system by any means. To quote Joomla co-founder Brian Teeman:
“Please can you show me Joomla’s built in membership/community features as I’ve been using Joomla for 6 years and 16 days and I’m still to find them.” 3
Now without knowing what Alec’s exact situation was I can’t say that his distribution of Joomla didn’t have some community features that came with it when he installed it, but I can promise anyone who installs Joomla’s core package will not find anything resembling a membership system or a community-centric application.
Alec ends his list of advantages by saying he’s still searching for more advantages. While I could certainly help him out with that, I just want to point out a few of the advantages he boasts about WordPress that he apparently failed to recognize in Joomla:
Huge community.
Easy to theme in a unique way. A WordPress site does not have to look like a WordPress site.
Great plugin architecture.
Plugins for everything.
Lots of great professional developers.
Fast development cycle. Improvements every year.
Huge community. Joomla has a decent sized community. Forum.joomla.org has these statistics: Total posts 2,447,339 | Total topics 575,025 | Total members 512,054 4
I’m not here to compare Joomla’s community to WordPress, they’ve got some great people and I’m happy for them, but to recognize WordPress for it’s community, and not Joomla for it’s community is a clear and rude bias. Joomla has a huge multinational community in many different places, whether it be official channels like Joomla.org, or on some other sites like ataaw.org, nooku.org, mailing lists, twitter, facebook – the community of Joomla is enormous.
Whether or not Joomla is or isn’t easy to theme is subjective, but, does a Joomla site have to look like a Joomla site? Certainly not! To expound on that further, anyone experienced with different web applications can spot ‘tell tail’ signs of applications. One thing I always notice with Joomla is the signup / login module. With wordpress it’s that ever-present Month / Date category filter on the right side of nearly every wordpress site in existence.
Now with all that said, who really cares if you can spot a Joomla site or a wordpress site. Are you ashamed of it or something? Does a site have to be ‘untraceable’ for some reason? Is there an unspoken rule I’m not aware of here?
Plugins for everything – That’s awesome for wordpress. I’m glad that they’re able to meet a lot of different application scenarios. Joomla has plugins (we call them exensions) for ‘everything’ too. Why didn’t that make it onto Alec’s post I’m not sure. But, if there’s something in particular he was looking for from a plugin he couldn’t find, what was it? (And was it available for WordPress?)
“Lots of great professional developers” is again, a pretty subjective advantage, but again, good for wordpress! Joomla also has what I would define as great professional developers too. If Alec is able, he has my personal invite to any Joomla day he’s able to make time to attend. I’m sure after a few beers with some of the very open and welcoming Joomla community he’ll agree that we have great and professional developers also.
A fast development cycle is something that Joomla is pretty behind on, but we are making progress in this area. The project has moved to a Long Term / Short Term release system. The project has planned for short term releases being put out every 6 months and long term releases approximately every 18 months. 5
Alright so now it’s time to look at the disadvantages that Alec has brought up about Joomla. Again, it’s important to remember, opinions are just that, opinions. But there are a few factual items to look at:
Built-in performance pretty sluggish/clunky.
Weak weblog section
Hard to theme. A Mambo/Joomla site looks like Mambo/Joomla, like it or not.
Crappy built-in SEO. Leading SEO plugin belongs to a very peculiar developer and is encrypted (have fun repairing the SEO plugin, we reverse engineered and decrypted it for our site to make our changes even after paying for it).
Nasty, nasty core code. Very difficult to fix broken items
Most good plugins are pay.
Rather mediocre developers. Anyone who likes to code in Joomla/Mambo in 2011 ought to see a psychiatrist.
Developer pricing is all over the map as there are many old-school Mambo/Joomla developers still ought there churning out convoluted future-resistant code quite affordably.
Performance is a never-dying discussion in any circle. But let’s be honest, we don’t know what kind of environment that Alec had installed Joomla in, and it could’ve been a top of the line server with all the perfect settings, or it could have been an overloaded GoDaddy account on a day when Alec’s internet connection was being hit pretty hard. Only Alec can answer this of course, but to cite something as subjective as performance as a disadvantage without saying what environment it’s in is pretty weak.
Weblogging, blogging, is something that WordPress is designed to do, and it does it extremely well. Joomla is designed to manage content (hence why WordPress is a blogging platform and Joomla a CMS platform), it can be used (like WordPress) to do many different things, and blogging is one of them. But Alec is right here, blogging in core Joomla isn’t as plug-and-play as WordPress. However with certain extensions it can be a great blogging platform. Just like WordPress being a great ecommerce platform with the right extensions as Alec talks about in his interview. Fair is fair, here.
I already talked about the appearance of Joomla site’s, and there’s a lot of great Joomla developers building sites that look like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Changing the appearence of any site is a matter of modifying HTML, CSS, and images. If a Joomla site looks like another Joomla site it’s not because Joomla makes it hard to change, it’s because a developer didn’t bother to change it.
SEO was a huge complaint in Joomla 1.0 (or Mambo) from the (“nonexistant”) Joomla community, and the core developers worked hard to improve this in Joomla 1.5, and even more to improve it in Joomla 1.6. Not many expert Joomla developers use the core SEO functions, and Alec admits that he and his team paid for an extension, the ‘leading’ one. I don’t know which one it was, but a quick look at the extensions Joomla directory for the Editor’s pick and the most popular extensions shows that sh404sef is the current ‘leading’ extension. 6, 7
A quick look at sh404sef’s Terms of Service shows one thing: GNU GPL license. (8). What that means is if Alec was using the ‘leading’ extension, and that leading extension was sh404sef, he should have received a GNU GPL extension, freely modifiable under the license’s terms. Reverse engineering doesn’t exist by definition with GPL licensed software because the nature of the license is to encourage exploration in the code, to help to contribute, and I’d like to thank Alec for helping to fix any issues and contributing back to the Joomla project. I hope he let the developers know what he did so they could see what he and his team fixed!
Alec complains about the core code of Joomla / Mambo being ‘nasty’ and ‘difficult to fix’. Since I’m still not totally sure what Alec was using (there’s a big difference, as we already discussed, between Mambo and Joomla) this could be true, or false. All software has bugs, though. There’s many people in the Joomla community who would agree with Alec, and many others who wouldn’t. That said, whether or not the code is nasty will always have to remain a personal opinion.
The Joomla community is really quite unique, but Alec states that the community is fractured due to the fork. People in the Joomla community are passionate. They love what they’re doing, they are opinionated and they want to see the best for the community. The Joomla community is community lead, there is no single company or owner to tell people what to do or direct the project. When highly opinionated, skilled, and passionate people get together amazing things happen (like the three world renowned, and also free content management systems!), unfortunately sometimes disagreements cannot be resolved. However, its important to appreciate the fact that differences of opinion has lead to some really cool Joomla-centric projects being created. But again, now we’re getting into perspective. The truth is that yes, not everyone in the Joomla community is willing to forgive and forget, but it certainly isn’t the majority of us!
Now here’s something that Alec states as a disadvantage that I’m not at all sure why he thought it was: “Most good extensions are pay”. First of all let’s take a look at the most popular Joomla extensions according to the JED10:
There’s 20 of the most popular extensions on the JED. There’s two that are paid. That’s 10% of what is arguably the good extensions being paid extensions. Most of the ‘good extensions’ on the first page of the JED’s are actually free – 90% of them, to be precise. To top it off I did a quick check on the Joomla extensions directory and found that 5434 extensions of the 8166+ 10 of all the extensions in the JED non-commercial. That’s about 67% of the entire JED being listed as free, non-commercial licensed extensions. A little more arithmetic shows that 2732 actually are commercial (33%).
The point is, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is that Alec is dead wrong when he says that most of the good Joomla extensions are commercial. They most of the extensions, and most of the good ones, are free!
Now Alec starts to say some things that I’d call fighting words: “Rather mediocre developers. Anyone who likes to code in Joomla/Mambo in 2011 ought to see a psychiatrist.” Now, I understand that Alec was just trying to be jovial and good humored, but this sort of comment is really quite offensive to the people who’ve contributed to the project. There’s lots of people who enjoy ‘coding in Joomla’ (not sure about Mambo!). And, a lot of them are senior developers who have either given up jobs or positions at companies to work in Joomla, or have been hired out of the Joomla community to become senior level developers for other companies.
The final point that Alec makes about Joomla is a rather curious one. He states that ‘developer pricing is all over the map’. I didn’t see any sources or research that he provided to back up this point (or any of his other ones, actually) but I suppose this sort of thing might be true. But I highly doubt it’s true for Joomla alone. Developer pricing can vary by experience level, location, economic market standards etc… For any CMS platform, WordPress and Drupal included.
WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla/Mambo: An Experienced Web Professsional Perspective
In this fourteen minute interview with Alec Kinnear, Creative Director Foliovision, Alec shares his thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of developing with the three commonly used Content Management (CMS) systems.
A special shout out to Alec for his contribution to the Web professional community and for being the really nice guy that he is.
Alec was kind enough to share the following detail in “his own” words:
Drupal Advantages
Very clean core code.
Good project leadership from Acquia.
Some very good developers available for hire.
Fewer clowns available for hire (you can either code Drupal or you can’t, it’s harder to fake it).
Can be made very server efficient in the right hands (scaleable).
Disadvantages
Less ready made drop-in plugins. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty almost every time.
More imposing default user interface.
Fewer developers.
More expensive developers.
Joomla/Mambo
Advantages
Good menu system.
Strong static page structure (cf. weblog).
Built-in membership/community features.
Long time on the market.
I’m searching here.
Disadvantages
Built-in performance pretty sluggish/clunky.
Horrid built-in URLs.
Weak weblog section.
Hard to theme. A Mambo/Joomla site looks like Mambo/Joomla, like it or not.
Crappy built-in SEO. Leading SEO plugin belongs to a very peculiar developer and is encrypted (have fun repairing the SEO plugin, we reverse engineered and decrypted it for our site to make our changes even after paying for it).
Nasty, nasty core code. Very difficult to fix broken items.
Fractured community (never healed after Joomla/Mambo split back in 2006).
Most good plugins are pay.
Rather mediocre developers. Anyone who likes to code in Joomla/Mambo in 2011 ought to see a psychiatrist.
Developer pricing is all over the map as there are many old-school Mambo/Joomla developers still ought there churning out convoluted future-resistant code quite affordably.
WordPress
Advantages
Huge community.
Easy to optimise for performance thanks to Donncha O Caoimh and Frederick Townes. Great work guys.
Easy to theme in a unique way. A WordPress site does not have to look like a WordPress site.
Great plugin architecture.
Plugins for everything.
Lots of great professional developers.
Fast development cycle. Improvements every year.
Active leadership from Automattic and founding team. Particular thanks to Mark Jaquith for keeping the community running with less nepotism and more fairness than most collective human endeavour.
Disadvantages
Fairly weak core code (in comparison to Drupal, but not Joomla!) but core getting better every year.
Lots of really crap faker developers in the pool who couldn’t build a working website to save their mother’s life.
Lots of popular but seriously broken plugins which will cripple your website performance forever and make it nearly impossible for you to cleanly upgrade (NextGen Gallery, I’m looking at you but not just you).
Really crappy commercial themes which are heavily marketed but compromise your ability to either upgrade or switch themes and compromise performance for the life of your site.
Weak static page management without adding plugins. Easily fixed with said plugins.
Too fast an upgrade cycle. You have to keep upgrading your site, whether you like it or not, for security reasons. There are no security releases only new versions. Feel the pain for a commercial site with running a full complement of plugins. Corollary: choose your plugins and plugin developers very, very carefully for cleanliness of code and frequency of update.
Conclusion
For a very large commercial project, I can see a justification for choosing Drupal. On a big project, most of your expense will be custom development anyway – everything has to be optimised and integrated – so you don’t much care one way or another about a myriad of plugins which you will probably not use. I still wouldn’t make that trade-off: slightly better core code for a vast pool of community contributed code. But it’s a defensible position.
Joomla/Mambo should die a violent death. We did our first CMS project in Mambo and last year redeveloped a couple of existing sites in Joomla. Our best developers – very platform agnostic – threatened to quit if I accepted anymore Joomla work. Such crappy, convoluted spaghetti code they’d never seen. And these developers have had ample chance to see the worst side of WordPress.
The only justification for a site in Joomla/Mambo is that it’s legacy (i.e. you already did a lot of custom development on it six years ago and don’t have the budget to migrate) or that you are part of an international network standardised on Joomla/Mambo and the mothership discourages anyone from leaving the central platform (our client’s situation). For everyone else, just migrate out and count your blessing that you got your site out alive. Enjoy the fresh air and clean code of WordPress (or Drupal).
WordPress is the platform of choice in my opinion for the small, medium or large business. Whatever holes you can find in WordPress (editorial management process, page management, ecommerce, membership site) are easily solved with high quality plugins.
The cool part about WordPress is that the core is kept clean so that you aren’t forced to load code you don’t need if you want a simple weblog. Thus WordPress can be a weblog, a corporate information site, a membership site, a store or an international news network.
We regularly develop advanced real estate sites in WordPress, maintain a very sophisticated insurance site, have developed elaborate furniture rental systems and develop the most delicious cooking sites as well as gorgeous online literary reviews. Not to mention political, news and law sites. All in WordPress.
The danger with WordPress include the overhyped commercial themes which don’t solve your problems but pretend to (I’m looking at you DIYthemes.com and Thesis, WooThemes and ElegantThemes). A related danger are the weak developers and hangers on who have infested the huge WordPress community and enthusiastically give bad advice, whether about SEO or gallery plugins. These clowns will happily break your website for pay or into a defective by design commercial theme. Forewarned is forearmed.
Just like any other serious professional endeavour you need steady hands on deck when you want to take your site to the next level if you want to maintain performance, appearance and compatibility. Once you have substantial traffic or need ecommerce, WordPress is no longer a DIY venture for the non-programmer.
According to Alec, “We personally recommend people start a new site on WordPress.com unless they are developing for an established business. Once you have an audience or a functioning business, self-hosted WordPress is the way to go. Even the sky is not a limit. There are few sites we could not develop better and faster in WordPress.”
