Its always nice to see ColdFusion and Agile mentioned in the same breath. Sean Corfield comments on Justin James who blogged on the 10 skills developers will need in the next five years. Justin would have done better not to mention any specific technologies as taken on a general level he makes some great points. But as he does mention Java .Net and php he has provoked responses from technology communities such as the ColdFusion community. Sean does a great job of illustrating that if your doing CFML then you're hitting Justin's criteria without lifting a finger. That leaves me to ask rhetorical questions about why there are only 10 skills and not 17?

Justin's blog is well attended and well commented so he's definitely hit on a hot subject. I'm particularly pleased that Sean's response supports the motivation for our newly formed Adobe Business User Group (UK) through which we intend to promote the value of CFML as a cost effective technology and platform for the enterprise. Although all the points Sean makes are extremely relevat, the key parts of Sean's response that relate to this are:

1: One of the “Big Three” (.NET, Java, PHP)

In addition to Sean's comments I'd point out that CFML is built on a Java platform. Also Eben Hewitt writes a great book on how to migrate to Java from CFML - if any CFers are writing CFscript to work with components then they are already getting close to the structures in Java without the discipline.

3: Web development

Yes CFML is used for web but it can of course also be used for broader applications at PJ media we use CFML for the full end to end systems from taking the order on the web to integrating with the warehouse and 3rd party systems.

7: Agile methodologies

I believe CFML makes it easier to be agile

- its great for producing working software quickly
- its relatively easy to train in CFML and bring new team members up to speed
- its easy for creative people to relate to and get excited about
- it integrates easily with other technologies - particularly Java and .Net
- it can be used to build UI and reporting Apps quickly
- as Sean mentions there are tools such as MXUnit that allow unit testing to be conducted

Its very encouraging to see how CFML can be used to respond to articles like Justin's - more please! As always Justin and Sean's blogs are focussed on the technical aspects of the subject matter which is where the conversation must start. For me this illustrates that the business community needs to take a closer look at CFML and other Adobe products to see where they can reap its benefits. What I want to see is more conversation about the benefits to business of CFML on top of the marvellous benefits to the development community.