By Rich Seeley, News Writer
13 Aug 2008 | SearchSOA.com
Considered by many to be a dead language just a few years ago, ColdFusion is getting a second life in rich Internet applications (RIA) developed at the San Diego Department of Child Support Services (SDDCSS). Darius Fattahipour, senior IT engineer for the child services agency, is updating ColdFusion applications to provide a RIA Calendar Dashboard to reduce social service client wait times while monitoring and managing the appointments of children, parents and agency personnel.
ColdFusion provider Adobe has worked to improve the integration of ColdFusion with Flex and AIR, its advanced RIA tool chest. This is providing new life not only for the legacy applications but also for the skillsets of an army of ColdFusion coders. ColdFusion was originally produced by Allaire, which was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, which in turn was acquired by Adobe Systems Inc. in 2005.
Fattahipour said the new RIA application, completed this past week, provides real-time alerts for the department staff so they can better manage appointment scheduling. The Calendar Dashboard leverages the legacy ColdFusion backend with the newest Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Flex for the user interface, he explained. The Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES framework provides the messaging.
Fattahipour went through a period when ColdFusion was considered a “dying language” and development seemed to be moving toward either .NET or J2EE. For ColdFusion coders, Adobe’s integration of ColdFusion first with Flex and this past year with AIR has given them new life in (RIA) development, Fattahipour said. It saves time and money in moving ColdFusion application into the RIA world, because developers don’t have to re-write their backend system in .NET of Java, he said.
To make the transition, ColdFusion developers have to learn ActionScript, the Adobe scripting language for Flex and AIR, similar to JavaScript, he explained. But he credits the vendor with creating a seamless integration of the old and new technologies.