So… what have you done for me lately? I make your life easier. I allow you to create great web applications, impress your co-workers, wow your clients, and I’m sure you’re a hero to your boss at least 3 or 4 times a week because of me. So what have you done for me lately? Have you stuck up for me during a fight recently? Have you fought for me to move ahead? Have you really pushed as hard as you could to upgrade me?
If you haven’t figured it out by now I’m not talking about me, Eric Jones your blogger incognito. I’m talking about ColdFusion, the CFML language and the CF world as we know it. Many times I hear about a new person getting put off by ColdFusion because they don’t think it’s supported by a large community or they don’t hear enough “buzz” about it or they think the “mind share” is too low. You know what? They are probably right when you look at the circles they run in BUT maybe they are only right because we as CF developers have allowed it to be that way.
I’m constantly amazed how the number of people who know ColdFusion don’t advertise it, or promote it, or shout from the roof tops how much they do love / enjoy it. I’ve been called a fanatic on many occasions for my passionate support of ColdFusion or my endless tit for tat’s with other web programmers. This is nothing new for sure and it’s completely reversible, sometimes with little to no effort at all.
So what can you do? Get active for starters. There is a huge community of active and vocal ColdFusion programmers out there and many many more who just lurk in the shadows. Sure you can hang out at the SitePoint forums but did you also know there are mailing lists for CF Developers (even those new to the language), and for finding jobs? Did you know there is an entire web site dedicated to CF jobs and that Adobe has a great CF community forums as well. Let’s not also forget the multitude of ColdFusion / Macromedia (now Adobe) User Groups spread all across the world and if there isn’t one near you Adobe gives you the tools to start your own! Right now we’ve even got a great resource for open source ColdFusion projects at RiaForge and CFOpen along with a great list of projects over at Remote Synthesis which you can use and contribute to. Of course we can’t forget the blogs, oh the blogs!
Me personally I like to think I do a lot for ColdFusion.
- I work with the language full time and blog about it at work
- I’m helping to start an Open Source ColdFusion Project
- I’m an active board member for my local ColdFusion User Group where I’ve presented and give out prizes (yes that make me the popular one!)
- I teach ColdFusion to all walks of life
- You’ve probably seen me on the SitePoint forums and maybe even on CF-Talk
But this is just a small part that I play and there are others out there who do a whole lot more than me. The point I’m trying to make today is that it’s about time we stopped being just developers and show everyone what a community we really are.
So tell me what do you do, or better yet what are you going to do!
Eric Jones
