Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

ColdFusion at 25: not the kid most have stuck in their minds

As ColdFusion turns 26 next month, many seem stuck remembering it only as the "teen" they knew or even the "child", when instead it's grown up to be a capable "adult", impressive in many ways, and even more so recently. In this session, we'll look back at how CF has indeed evolved into a very capable platform, with quite modern features that seem to surprise many--including people working with it currently. If you struggle "finding CF people" or "getting buy-in", perhaps these observations could help you with both challenges. If nothing else, they're things designed simply to help you get your job done, while keeping up with modern practices.

We'll start with many modern coding techniques--which will be familiar to those using more "modern" languages but that many don't realize CF supports, and may have for years. We'll then look at ways that things such as CF installation/deployment, configuration/administration, monitoring, security, and more have improved over the years. And we'll look not only at CF itself but the community surrounding it, ranging from resources for help and learning to tools and services that others have created, making CF a far more complete ecosystem than most give it credit. Put another way: it's not your father's CF!

I look forward to presenting this topic and hope you'll come check it out.

Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

That may sound like a boring or simplistic topic to some. "Doesn't everyone already know how to install CF?" Trust me, they do not. :-) I help people do it every week, whether CF2021 or earlier versions. There are various tips I can and will share, and of course some about CF2021 in particular. But much will benefit you even if still using an older CF version.

For more on the talk, including a description (and my bio) see the meetup event page, which offers details like the URL for attending, the date and time (Thursday at 12p Eastern), and more.

I have just realized that I've been derelict in announcing here on my blog when I'm giving such talks. I did 3 meetup sessions last year, as well as a couple of AMA ("ask me anything") sessions with Dan Wilson, who has been helping me in running the group the past year, with my sincere thanks! :-)

Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

For most, you should read on, especially about an important change regarding TLS support (and calling out to servers not yet running TLS 1.2 or above). I cover that and other important topics:

• What's in the JVM update, do you need to update to it?
• A key change in this Java update: calls out to TLS 1.1 or 1.0 no longer allowed, by default
• Re-enabling support for calling out to old TLS versions
• Groundhog day: you'll need do make this java.security file change on any later JVM updates
• Should you update to the new JVM version?
• The importance of testing such updates/changes
• More questions you may surely have, and finding answers to them
• Obtaining the updated Java installers

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Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Some good news is that ColdFusion offers simple ways/variables that can show you each of these, via the admin or via CFML code. In this post, I discuss both approaches, including a simple single variable which works in CF2018 and above, a variation for those on CF2016 and earlier, as well as variations for Lucee.

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Note: This blog post is from 2021. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

In this post, I offer a rundown of what seem the most significant libraries and their versions, as deployed in the first release of ColdFusion (2021 Release).

[Update: I have started updating this post to identify the versions as of update 4, released in May 2022. Rather than wait until I have found ALL the new values, I will just update the list below, clarifying when I have noted the updated value.]

This is something I have been doing in my "hidden gems" talks for the past several releases. I also explain here how I find these version numbers, which isn't always obvious, in case that may help anyone (and also because some libraries may change with future updates to CF2021). I also offer some commentary on why this matter of library versions is important to some, as well as some counterpoints to the demands some have that every library should always be the absolute latest version (and why that's just not practicable).

If you just want the version numbers without the "waffle", look for the bulleted list of them below. :-)

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Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Or you can change your CFML code to get around the problem, as I also discuss below.

[Update: As of Mar 2021, Adobe now offers this "hotfix" as of CF2021 Update 1. You still need to add the JVM arg discussed, if you want to do that:

Again, while no longer need to obtain and implement the hotfix jar file itself, the update does NOT change the DEFAULT behavior, which is why that JVM arg is still necessary. The rest of the information below applies.]

Read on for additional details.

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Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

In this post, I discuss the problem, as well as two solutions you can choose between: a) finding and changing the incompatible code, or (new since Dec 2020) b) implementing a new JVM arg that Adobe offered to revert this behavior back to how things worked before CF2021. You must do one or the other of these things, if you are affected by this issue. The update does not REVERT the behavior.

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Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

The recent release of CF2021 is a great sign for the continued vitality of CF, but this looming deadline is a reminder that as the years roll on, we not only get new versions but we say good-bye to old ones.

Wondering what you can do? or when CF2018 or CF2021 support ends? And what's the difference between "core" and paid Adobe support plans? For more on these, as well as official Adobe documentation that discusses such things, read on.

[Update: CF2016 users got a "reprieve" of sorts, when Adobe released updates to CF2021 and 2018 in March 2021, and they also offered the final update to CF2016, update 17, especially because it address a security vulnerability. Sadly, some of the changes in the update--not related to the security fix--were "breaking" changes. For more on that update, see the Adobe blog post from March 2021.)

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Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

As with each CF release, there are features great and small--ones that may "sell" it, and ones that may simply make your life easier.

This is a follow-up to my post from last month, Getting started with "Project Stratus" public beta, aka CF2021. In that I highlighted some key info one would need to get started USING the prerelease, which came out in August, but I only briefly mentioned then some of the key new features. (I also explained why I had referred even then to it being CF2021, given info I'd found in the prerelease.)

In this post, I want to highlight more clearly what those new features are, nearly 60 of them in several categories!--just with a brief mention of the feature and perhaps its sub-features--and most important with a pointer to where to find them discussed in far more detail.

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Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

What matters most is that it's one of the boldest new versions of CF in quite some time. In this post, I want to share some tips about getting started with the beta, as I have seen many in the community left wondering about some things.

My focus here is not on "what's new" (I'll offer a brief list here, and more in a later post), but really just "how to get started", especially during the beta (or "prerelease") as some things are not as obvious as they perhaps should be. In fact, I make some pointed suggestions that I hope Adobe will consider, as well as share tips for you in the meantime.

In this post, I cover:

• How easily anyone can join the public beta (Don't miss all that's on the prerelease front page)
• Available documentation resources, don't miss them! (The 500-page (!) release notes, and separate system requirements and known issues docs)
• Getting help with the prerelease, don't go it alone! (Filing bug reports, feature requests for the prerelease; asking for help and learning in the available prerelease forums)
• The available installers and more
• A taste of what's new (more to come in a later post)
• About the use of the codename, Project Stratus

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