Comments on: Frameworks, frameworks everywhere

By: kay.smoljak

kay.smoljak — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:38:36 +0000

Thanks everyone for your great comments!

When you’re setting up a poll I guess there are always options that you could add… but at some point you have to try and lump people into a broad category in order to get a meaningful generalisation. I realised afterwards that one option I could have added is “No, because I don’t know much about them” for those who maybe have not been exposed to much framework information. “I’m not interested” perhaps sounds more negative than it should - someone might be not interested because they work in an environment where development style is dictated by someone else, or because they don’t feel they have time to investigate, or some other reason that is not necessarily close-mindedness.

Still, the number of people who have indicated that they are looking at one or have recently starting using one is encouraging. I would have loved some comments from people who aren’t interested in what a framework has to offer, but I guess the fact that my articles are very much pro-framework is probably makes leaving a negative comment a little intimidating.

@fleet19 - I will keep going until either I run out of people who want to participate or people stop reading the articles :) So contact me after you launch (or maybe just before) and we’ll set something up.

By: fleet19

fleet19 — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:09:31 +0000

How long is the series going to be in-progress for? Some associates and I are developing a hybrid framework / tools set exclusively for ColdFusion but we don’t project the initial release will be ready until August. We expect the “framework” to take off like birthday cake and would love to be included in the survey. It’s called HotCore, and will be combinable with pretty much every CF framework on the market today (we think).

Thanks!

By: sosensible

sosensible — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:27:46 +0000

I think the bigger issue of frameworks is our geeky approach. (pardon me for the slur) We see the technology and expect our truths will be adopted because they are truths. My understanding is not that these people are not interested in frameworks as much as the frameworks they have checked out didn’t prove worthy to them of interest. People act on perception. If they don’t perceive the framework is approachable then the won’t be interested.

Example: Some frameworks and ORMs tie themselves to an IOC system. With this one sentence some people are ready to jump of this post. These concepts are foreign and the the foreigner they need to see an ROI from their perspective that is worthy of the investment. AND… they must buy into it… not just agree mentally. If they do not they will take the attitude that they are not interested in frameworks because to date none have been perceived as worthy to use. :)

By: John Farrar

John Farrar — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:20:27 +0000

I think this means they might have looked but didn’t find anything they were interested in. It seems most frameworks presentations tie so much to the framework that the user doesn’t see a good ROI from their perspective. Years ago it became apparent to me that one of the human conditions is we act on perception and not truth. (If truth matches our perception then we act on it of course, but in and of itself it doesn’t mean people will act on it.)

With that said, Frameworks are things I perceive to be truths. Sometimes the people creating and promoting frameworks make them unapproachable from the perspective of outsiders. Things like presenting an ORM wired to an IOC technology from the start. This is easier in practice, but not in approachability. :)

By: cfer

cfer — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:00:40 +0000

Sean, I think your interpretation of the statistics isn’t quite solid. “Not interested” may mean just that: not interested in using a Coldfusion framework. That is not necessarily close-minded. The respondent might be interested in a non-Coldfusion framework, or might not be interested in Coldfusion at all.

By: David

David — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:28:31 +0000

I have to be honest, I was kind of surprised at the poll results (well, after 117 responses). It kind of goes to everything I’ve heard at conferences, and within the CF community - those that use frameworks love them, and those that don’t, are pretty apathetic towards them.

Sean, I think there’s a bit more space between “no, but looking” and “no, not interested” than indicated by the choices. The latter is almost the default choice, if you are not using a framework, and not actively looking, where do you fall? I would guess (and its only a guess) that part of the 32% is open to using frameworks, but are apathetic, or just haven’t made the effort. For sure, though, there are those that are completely close minded to using them.

Still, just thought I’d put a different spin on the numbers.

Cheers,

Davo

By: SIGEPJEDI

SIGEPJEDI — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:52:12 +0000

Looking forward to the results.
The percent of those “not interested” in frameworks seriously need to step their game up!

http://twitter.com/sigepjedi

By: Dan Vega

Dan Vega — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:23:34 +0000

Great Article - Looking forward to the results! I would have to agree with you Sean. I am really surprised with the not interested count. Adoption is one thing but you would at least think the majority of developers would like to make their life easier!

By: Sean Corfield

Sean Corfield — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:33:52 +0000

And I meant to add that I’m stunned to see 32% “not interested” in frameworks… I can understand people not using them yet and looking into them but saying “not interested” seems remarkably closed-minded to me.

By: Sean Corfield

Sean Corfield — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:32:31 +0000

Here’s the list of frameworks we use at my company:

Model-Glue, ColdSpring, Transfer plus Edmund (my new specialized framework to be released this year) and then for testing we use MXUnit, CFEasyMock (and ColdMock a little but we’re moving to just CFEasyMock).

I’m a huge advocate of frameworks (no surprise!) so it’s great to see this coverage out there - keep up the good work!