CF.Objective 2017 Recap

Greetings from 30,000 feet in the air!  I never used to “splurge” for airplane wifi. These days there is just too much to do to lose 5 or 6 hours being disconnected, especially after a conference.

CF.Objective 2017 wrapped up last night.  There were quite a few changes from previous years. In no particular order:

1. The name was changed back to CF.Objective.

After a few years as Dev.Objective, the focus was brought back to be more CF-centric.  Personally I feel there is so much other technology that CF (or any) developers need to know as well, that I didn’t mind either name or “focus type” that the conference went with.  There has always been enough great content for me to justify the time and travel expenses.  But if they name (and focus) change helps for other people, great!

2. CF.Objective is 2 days now instead of 3, with a lower price to match.  It never feels good cutting a really big check (or asking your boss to) for training. I’ve felt that way myself before, but after the conferences were over, I was always glad I did it.  With many other tech conferences being only 1 or 2 days in length, shortening CF.Objective just seems to make sense too.

3. The conference was moved to Washington DC.  

This makes sense: there are tons of ColdFusion developers in the DC area.  However my guess is most of them are “9 to 5, 5-tag developers” as the attendance level was lower this year than previous years.  Honestly I think that’s the fault of the developers themselves more than anything (and maybe a little due to the July date as lots of people take summer vacations).  If a conference is literally in your town, there’s almost no excuse: you need to go.  I don’t write a ton of WordPress apps, but when WordCamp comes to Sacramento, it’s on my calendar.  Ya know why? They also had sessions on Git, design, tips for writing content, and explaining how https works under the hood: all very useful info for non-WordPress developers.  And I didn’t have to fly, or get a hotel room.  Washington DC ColdFusion folks, what was your excuse for not showing up?  Seriously.

Originally I was supposed to give 2 talks of my own, which I did. As different logistics got sorted out, I also ended up moderating the panel discussion on “Longevity In An Ever Changing Industry” and co-hosting the “CMD Office Hours” with Mark Drew (CMD and I work together quite often).  So between “speaking” at 4 sessions and needing some prep time, I only attended a few sessions.

For me the focus this year was on Docker.  That’s the tool I’ve been quasi-using with different teams for a while now but have yet to get  that “lightbulb moment” where I feel like I’m genuinely comfortable with it.  So I attended Mark Drew’s talk on Getting Started With Docker, as well as both of Geoff Bowers’ talks on using Docker in Development and Production.  And ya know what? I still don’t have that lightbulb feeling. :) But I’m MUCH closer.  And it doesn’t seem quite so esoteric any more.  I can probably set up a few Docker playground sites now without sweating bullets.  And that’s worth the time and energy I put into attending their sessions.

Other highlights included Luis Majano’s talk on testing and automation (Luis always does such a great job, and the work his Ortus team does is truly some of the most innovative stuff coming out of CFML these days).  I had several conversations with the Lucee team and all signs point to them continuing to grow and pursue new ideas, which was all great to hear!

Thank you to Carol and the rest of the team for putting on another successful conference! See you next year!

-nolan