MAX 2008 Review and Content
Well, another MAX North America has come and gone. In general, my perceptions of this year’s event puts it at among the best we have ever been able to put on - going back to Allaire, and Dev Con in Washington, D.C. Certainly, no event with record attendance of over 5,000 is going to please everybody, but the MAX team came really close. I had a total of six hands-on labs presentations, and an unconference presentation as well. Needless to say, I kept busy. Here’s a few thoughts on MAX 2008, as well as descriptions and content for my sessions.
MAX Review
The MAX team has already announced that they’d like your feedback in the guidance of 2009. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a conference of this scale organized in public, but I complement their vision. Some of the reviews early in to that process talk about presenters that seemed unprepared and criticism on the unconference events. I’d like to call out a few thoughts on these comments.
Presenters were kept to a strict timeline this year. The first scheduled review of content was scheduled on July 18, 2008. That’s a full four (4) months ahead of the actual event. That’s not to mention the actual call for papers. Final content was due September 29, 2008; almost two months before the event. Imagine then, preparing a presentation today, and then being expected to deliver it perfectly two months later, right out of the gate. If you did well on your content, your first delivery might be four months later!
I guess the point is that if the presenters seemed a bit rough on the first day, there’s a reason. I know I felt a bit rough. That being said, as a lab presenter, I was ecstatic to have been able to work with the actual VMWare image as part of the preparation process. Usually you just hand the assets over and hope everything works out as you hoped. I was able to significantly refine my presentations over the course of MAX because I knew my assets on the actual machines of the students. Easily my favorite part of the preparation process.
As for the unconferences, I only attended and presented at the CF Unconference, but I thought it was a great place to talk about those thing that mattered to you. If you’ve ever been to a barcamp or other unconference, the agenda is usually set as part of the opening hours of the event. Unconferences aren’t supposed to be formal events like MAX itself, 360Flex, or others. The thing I really like about an unconference is that I can experiment with new content and content that is maybe too off-track for a typical conference, I thought MAX fit that ideal perfectly.
Conversely, I was a bit let down that the unconferences got so little support. At the CF Unconference as an example, the only way the group would get lunch was to pay for it themselves. Yes, I understand that a typical unconference gets no support whatsoever, but if you’re giving space and equipment, then the MAX staff should at least also pitch in lunch. Keep in mind that you didn’t need a badge to attend a MAX unconference, so I appreciate the balancing act from the MAX staff, but no lunch?
As for MAX overall? Yes, wireless access was abysmal! I’m still not sure why conferences, especially conferences in Silicon Valley continue to mess this up. Attendees want to blog, upload pictures, Twitter, share video and more. No network equals no sharing. No sharing means less community feel, and less excitement from those that couldn’t make the trip. Next year is Los Angeles, CA. Please, give us decent wireless!
Real-Time ColdFusion with LiveCycle Data Services
This is easily one of my favorite subjects. So many ColdFusion developers I talk to are still using XML over HTTP for their Flex applications. A very few have made their way to CFCs and remote objects. Both of those are the very tip of the iceberg! There’s so much more you can do if you embrace the LiveCycle Data Services that’s included with your ColdFusion 8 installation. That’s what this session was all about.
We started with remoting, just to level-set the workflow of connecting Flex to data from ColdFusion. I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of the attendees were entirely new to Flex and Flex Builder. From there we moved into the world of asynchronous communications with a chat application (yes, I know it’s cliche). To show data push, we implemented a ColdFusion Gateway that leveraged threading (introduced in ColdFusion 
and emulated a long-running server transaction. We capped off the lab by talking about the possibilities and short-comings of all these by themselves, and rocked the house with data management.
AIR Core Concepts for Flash Developers
When Rob Christensen, the AIR Product Manager, asked if I’d be open to presenting a session, I was quick to accept. Having spent my fair share of time in the Flash authoring environment in the past, I thought the topic was very compelling. The lab consisted of six hands-on projects, executed with varying degrees of success throughout the week. I hadn’t considered that a number of the students wouldn’t have had any ActionScript experience whatsoever. I tried diligently, using the assets shipped months earlier on the VM Ware image, to adjust throughout the week, but to varying degrees of success.
The projects in the lab started with exploring how to create an Adobe AIR application using Flash CS4, or the extension available for Flash CS3. From there we moved into local file IO with a basic text editor. Exploring the embedded SQLite database was next with a basic contact manager. We talked about the differences between an actual browser and the HTML rendering engine (using WebKit) while making our own loosely formed version. From there we shifted into Flash Player 10 features, as a major part of the Adobe AIR 1.5 release announced at MAX 2008. We leveraged the new text engine and 3D, before circling back around for deploying an AIR application.
ColdFusion Unconference: LCDS, Threading, Gateways and More
The data push I showed in my Real-Time ColdFusion lab was very formal and very abbreviated over what I actually wanted to show. I used the CF Unconference as my opportunity to explore the full story. That story starts with a simple Flex application to manage GPS data. The problem was that uploading a large data set took time, and I felt uninformed. I wanted to push updates while the database inserts were actually being executed. From there I needed threads to separate the processing against the actual upload. Further on I need to use gateways to push data from the ColdFusion server into the LiveCycle Data Services instance.
The morning of the unconference I also got permission to show ColdFusion in the cloud on Amazon EC2 via Stax. Stax is an upstart that is in part run by the legendary Spike Washburn, who you’ll recall if you were around during the ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 6 migration (native to Java). The part of Stax that makes it so exceptionally compelling is that it has an SDK that makes developing on ColdFusion, exactly like developing on ColdFusion locally. That means you can use all your normal tools and workflows during development. I can’t explain the details on this exactly now, but watch for more information as Stax and Adobe figure out the details (such a licensing).
Conclusion
No conference is without it’s flaws, but MAX 2008 was about as exceptional a conference as ever I’ve attended; and given that I attend and present at conferences for a living, that’s saying something. I think being open about the 2009 details will aid significantly in making it even better. I had a ton of labs sessions, and presented at the ColdFusion Unconference. All those presentations, and their code, can be downloaded for your viewing pleasure (Real-Time ColdFusion, AIR Core Concepts, ColdFusion Unconference). I’m not sure what Los Angeles holds for us, but I’m super excited about the 2009 year ahead. Thanks everybody for such a great event!