ColdFusion Alive

Ray Camden talks about “Anxious about AI writing CF code (and how to overcome your fears)” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive Podcast with host Michaela Light.

“...that is the big shift I’ve seen over the last year, is that with all of the guardrails around things, it is so much more efficient and easier to trust AI to build what I want…” 



https://youtu.be/cObnRO_4lKQ
Show notes

Anxious about AI writing code?

Vibe-coded horror stories
Skills

Your coding style, steps and guardrails


Alternative AI tasks if you don't want to let AI code

Plan
Test
Review writing and code
Ideation to overcome writers block


Use your own judgment and sense


Confidence in AI-generated code

Hallucinations
Unit tests
Human read (some) of the AI-gen code, eye
Critique this code prompt - ideally with a different AI


Blog as a static site

Hugo, to Jerkel, to Eleventy
Astro


Learning new languages

Learning Typescript

Does this code make sense


Coming from other languages to CF
Webawesome web library - similar idea to Bootstrap CSS


AI sanity checking of my code
Better syntax checking

Break down my line(s) of code


Stackoverflow developer vs AI assisted developer

Entry-level jobs
Software development new career paths


AI IDEs and vibe coding

VS Code
Agentic agent dev tools
Less typing of code

 Autocomplete on steroids
SDLC and PRs

Create or update skill from what it learned




Ask AI agent - how can I utilize you better? Can you improve


AI coding as a super compiler

Higher level view
Beyond frameworks
Does the target language matter any more?
Adobe CF MCP docs server


What have you been doing lately?

Customer education


AI for marketing his blog ideas

Mentioned in this episode

Eleventy
Astro
Webawesome
Adobe CF MCP docs 

Blog
The MCP



Listen to the Audio

Bio
Raymond Camden



Raymond Camden is a developer advocate, focused on Generative AI, the web platform, development and cats. He has 8 kids, 5 dogs and 2 cats.
Links

raymondcamden.com 
His Amazon wishlist
Threads
LinkedIn

Interview transcript
Michaela Light
Welcome back to the show I'm here with Ray Camden famous cold fusion uh developer ai expert and general all-around great guy along with being a star wars fan and cat afectionado uh ray lives in louisiana one of the only state of the union that has a different law system I think and it does have great food and a bit of French influence. And he's a developer advocate, has been for many years. I think many, many years ago, a developer advocate or had some other title for Adobe, but you've now moved forward. And he has eight kids as well.

Raymond Camden
So eight kids, five cats, one dog.

Raymond Camden
No fish.

Michaela Light
Well, the cats might eat the fish. So welcome, Ray.

Raymond Camden
Hey, thank you for having me.

Michaela Light
And we're going to be talking about using AI with ColdFusion and development in general. Some of we're going to talk about are how some developers are kind of terrified about letting AI write code, having confidence in the code that's generated. How it can help if you have to move between languages. And we'll slip in some rag and AI sanity checking. And we'll ask Ray what he's been doing lately because that's always of interest. So tell us about how developers you talk to are frightened about using AI to write code. What do you think is going on?

Raymond Camden
I wouldn't say they're frightened. I think there's hesitation, maybe, because at least year or so ago, we saw so many vibe-coded things and heard vibe-coded horror stories. And I think, and from my personal experience, it wasn't necessarily fear, but I can remember about two years ago at a Microsoft conference. Using, I believe, Copilot. And my test was, hey, you know what? Create me a web component, but don't use a build step.
Read more
 


Michaela Light is the host of the CF Alive Podcast and has interviewed more than 100 ColdFusion experts. In each interview, she asks "What Would It Take to make CF more alive this year?" The answers still inspire her to continue to write and interview new speakers.

Michaela has been programming in ColdFusion for more than 20 years. She founded TeraTech in 1989. The company specializes in ColdFusion application development, security and optimization. She has also founded the CFUnited Conference and runs the annual State of the CF Union Survey.

 

Join the CF Alive revolution
Discover how we can all make CF more alive, modern and secure this year. Join other ColdFusion developers and managers in the CF Alive Inner Circle today.

Get early access to the CF Alive book and videos
Be part of a new movement for improving CF's perception in the world.
Contribute to the CF Alive revolution
Connect with other CF developers and managers
There is no cost to membership.

Monte Chan talks about “Semantic CF code search with JARVIS (No Arc Reactor Budget required)” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive Podcast with host Michaela Light.

“...With this tool, kind of like an AI bot, if you will, that will give a jump start on the onboarding process… the new employees can just use this bot to get a familiarity with the code base…” 



https://youtu.be/w2LeYZB8LA8
Show notes

What if you could ask questions about your codebase and get answers instantly?

Motivated by CodeQL by GitHub (Paid tool)
“What if a new developer (or a CTO) could just ask the codebase ‘where is the session timeout set?’ and get a real answer instead of grepping for three hours?”
“You called this a poor man’s J.A.R.V.I.S. Ben Nadel said ‘with great power comes… great self-indulgence.’ Are we about to be very self-indulgent today?


What is J.A.R.V.I.S.?

J.A.R.V.I.S. is the fictional artificial intelligence assistant created by Tony Stark in Marvel's Iron Man and Avengers comics and films.
J.A.R.V.I.S stands for "Just A Rather Very Intelligent System".


Codebase ingestion using vector databases

Walk the repo, split files into chunks (functions, classes, docs), turn each chunk into an embedding (a numeric vector that captures meaning), and store those vectors with metadata (path, line range, language). That index is what makes “where is session timeout set?” searchable by meaning, not just IDE search.
A vector database is a store optimized for “find the N most similar vectors.” Examples: Pinecone, Qdrant, Milvus, Chroma, LanceDB, plus CF’s built-in / in-memory store for demos. Code search is usually hybrid: vectors for meaning + keyword/BM25 for exact symbols.
How you chunk CFM/CFC/JS/SQL differently
Why you store a summary + metadata and embed that
The current gap: CF’s built-in document ingestion doesn’t yet understand CFC/CFML structure, so custom scripts are required

PDFs can be ingessed directly


Updating the vector store when your codebase changes 


Prompt-driven code exploration

Prompt-driven code exploration: You ask in English. The system retrieves the relevant chunks, stuffs them into the prompt, and the model answers from that context. That pattern is RAG (retrieval-augmented generation): retrieve first, then generate, so the model is grounded in your code instead of guessing



 

What you need” slide with practical commentary:



Piece
Why it matters
CIO translation


CF 2025 Update 8
Native AI, vector stores, agents, MCP
No new language or Python sidecar tax


Vector store (Qdrant / Milvus / Pinecone / Chroma)
In-memory is too small for real apps
Persistent, scalable “memory” for the AI


LLM (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Ollama local)
The brain
Cloud vs on-prem / air-gapped choice


Ingestion script
CF can ingest docs today; CFC/CFML still need custom work
One-time + ongoing cost of keeping the index fresh


MCP (optional but powerful)
File-system or other tools the agent can call
Controlled agency—AI can look without unrestricted access



Key terms

Vector store / embeddings -  numbers that capture the meaning of code so similarity search works
Chunking by logical entity (whole function, not random 500-token slices) -  this is the quality differentiator
Summary-first embeddings -  embed a rich description (purpose, path, callers, callees) rather than raw code only
MCP (Model Context Protocol) -  open standard so the agent can safely call tools (filesystem, DB, etc.)
Ongoing ingestion -  full re-index vs git-diff / pipeline-after-merge
Adobe folded LLM, embedding, vector-store, RAG, agent, and MCP APIs into the CF engine (commonly described as CF 2025 Update 8 / the “CF 2026” AI wave). You call models from CFML (ChatModel(), agent(), simpleRAG(), VectorStore(), etc.) instead of wiring every provider by hand.
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
An open standard so tools/resources are exposed the same way to Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT, etc. CF can host MCP servers or call MCP tools. Community projects like MCPCFC wrap existing CF functions as MCP tools.

Similar commercial tools

Sourcegraph Cody, Continue.dev, custom LanceDB/Qdrant indexers


A fascinating look at how AI can help developers understand and navigate complex applications. 

CIO / risk / value questions

Time-to-answer for audits, compliance questions, or new-hire onboarding
Reducing “bus factor” / key-person risk
Security posture:

Local Ollama option (data never leaves the building)
Guardrails and “excessive agency” concerns (echo Pete Freitag’s CF Summit security talk)
Prompt injection surface when the AI can call tools


Cost model: vector DB + LLM tokens + ongoing ingestion vs. developer hours spent hunting code
Build vs buy: this is a capability you can own inside the CF platform rather than another SaaS

Practical next steps & gotchas (5- 6 min)

Minimum viable version a team could stand up in a sprint
Biggest surprise or pain point he hit while building it
What CF 2026 still needs (better CFC/CFML-aware ingestion is the obvious one)
Where the slides and sample code live: github.com/knittingguy (JARVIS repo + the earlier mongoDB-langchain / aiagent_cf work)

Close & resources

One sentence each for the CF developer and the CIO listening
Ben Nadel quote callback
Point people to the GitHub, MCP servers list (mcpservers.org), and Monte’s Facebook/Geek Talk channel
Invite questions from the live or later audience
Why are you proud to use CF?
WWIT to make CF more alive this year?
What are you looking forward to at the Adobe CF Summit East?

Mentioned in this episode

133 GitHub Copilot & AI-Assisted Coding (Unlocking ColdFusion’s AI Potential) with Monte Chan
Qdrant vector database
CF 2026 features (TT blog)
MCP servers
CF Summit East
Monte's GitHub

Listen to the Audio

Bio
Monte Chan



Monte Chan is currently a Senior Web Programmer at Shoes For Crews. He has been programming in ColdFusion since version 4.5 back in 1999. He was a co-manager of the Alamo Area ColdFusion User Group from 2008 to 2010. In his free time, he enjoys learning any web development related technologies or just programming languages he can put his hands on. He also enjoys running marathons; he does not run fast; he just runs🙂. He currently resides in San Antonio, TX with his beautiful wife and three rescue dogs (two chiweenies and one pure-bred chihuahua).
Links

Facebook 
You can email me at monte (at) monteandjanicechan.com but you may get a quicker response if you send me a message in Facebook Messenger.
LinkedIn
YouTube channel, Geek Talk.
GitHub

Interview transcript
Michaela Light
So welcome back to the show. I'm here with Monte Chan and we're going to be talking about semantic ColdFusion code search with Jarvis. And you don't need an Arc Reactor budget to do this because it's all written in ColdFusion. So welcome, Monte.

Monte Chan
Oh, thank you.

Michaela Light
And it's been a few years since you've been on the show when you were talking about your AI coding experience. And I'll put that episode in the show notes at TeraTech.com. But let me introduce you to folks who haven't met you before. You're currently a senior web programmer at Shoes for Crews, and you've been programming ColdFusion since version 4.5 back in the late '90s. You used to be the co-manager of the Alamo Area ColdFusion User Group.

And in your free time, I don't know how you have free time because I've seen you presenting at CF Summit and I know you work hard. You enjoy learning any web development-related technologies or just programming languages that you can get your hands on. And also, you enjoy running marathons, though you don't have any world-record times there. You just enjoy it, do it for fun.

Currently, you're in San Antonio, Texas, and you have a beautiful wife and three rescue dogs. Two chiweenies and one purebred Chihuahua. What is a chiweenie? I've never heard of that. Chihuahua is the little dog, right?
Read more
 


Michaela Light is the host of the CF Alive Podcast and has interviewed more than 100 ColdFusion experts. In each interview, she asks "What Would It Take to make CF more alive this year?" The answers still inspire her to continue to write and interview new speakers.

Michaela has been programming in ColdFusion for more than 20 years. She founded TeraTech in 1989. The company specializes in ColdFusion application development, security and optimization. She has also founded the CFUnited Conference and runs the annual State of the CF Union Survey.

 

Join the CF Alive revolution
Discover how we can all make CF more alive, modern and secure this year. Join other ColdFusion developers and managers in the CF Alive Inner Circle today.

Get early access to the CF Alive book and videos
Be part of a new movement for improving CF's perception in the world.
Contribute to the CF Alive revolution
Connect with other CF developers and managers
There is no cost to membership.

Charlie Arehart talks about “Moving to ColdFusion 2025 Cheers and Challenges” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive Podcast with host Michaela Light.

"…There was so much in that Update 8. It is like a new release, and the AI stuff is by far the biggest. And there’s so much more than the AI stuff… if you think Update 8 was all about AI, it’s not.."



https://youtu.be/FX4FHKCxCK8
Show notes

Charlie, you always open Hidden Gems by saying there's more new stuff in a release than people ever realize. Looking back at CF2025, what's the one gem that surprised even you?

Does this include hidden gems in CF 2026 (aka CF 2025 update 8)?


ACF 2026 introduces native artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) integration, Model Context Protocol (MCP) support, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, new ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) features, security enhancements, developer tooling, monitoring capabilities, and performance improvements.
The installer now lets you set an allowed IP for the admin on any profile, and it reminds people about wsconfig. You pushed for both of these. Thanks! For shops that only touch a CF installer once every few years, how much does a small usability win like this actually move the needle?
Enabling HTTPS for the built-in CF Admin is basically trivial now, and you can force HTTPS only. On port 8500. Here's the thing that should scare people. In your consulting work, how many admins were you finding like that before CF2025? What's the worst thing you've seen happen because of it?

Since ACF 2016 admin not visible publicly by default


Containers got a real upgrade. 60 to 70 percent faster startup, secrets support, CCS inside containers, better docs. 

CF has had container support since ACF 2018!
For teams already on Docker or moving toward Kubernetes, what's the day one win they should expect?


Subscription licensing

With pure subscription licensing now the only path, how are procurement and finance teams reacting compared to the old perpetual model? What should a mid-sized shop be building into their multi-year budget forecast, and where's the true up risk hiding?

Subscription budget is same as upgrading every 2 years


Dev license 2 concurrent requests limit
CF2025 is subscription only now. You've got the public pricing numbers and you point out a lot of people were already on subscription through cloud AMIs or ETLAs. This is the number every budget owner actually wants before they'll sign off on anything. Purely on total cost of ownership, how does this compare to the old perpetual plus upgrade discount model for a mid-sized shop, over say a five year run?


API Manager doesn't need a CF license key anymore. That feels like a quiet one but it's huge. Who should be looking at this now that it's free, and what are people actually using it for?

Came out with ACF 2016
Useful for API monitoring, throttling, versioning and security


The new null coalescing operator, multi-exception catch, trailing commas, createObject loadPaths, these all feel overdue. 

Which of these do you think will actually change how people write CFML day to day, versus just being nice to have?


CSP and nonce support are built in now. For teams that have been fighting with Content-Security-Policy headers, how much of that pain does CF2025 actually solve, and what still has to be handled outside CF?

For better app security
Beware CFDump needs fixing if you use CSP - alt CSP header for this
Click Dump to expand or contract sections


The removals list is longer than any release I can remember! 

Prior depreciented functions were now removed.
YUI based UI tags, cfencode, Axis1, COM, parameterExists, tags as CFCs, ThreadTerminate. 
HTMLEditFormat() → EncodeforHTML()
This is the part where every CIO I talk to gets nervous, because somewhere in their app is one ancient tag holding the whole thing together, and nobody left on staff remembers why, kind of like nobody remembers who actually planted the tree that's now blocking the road. Of everything you've helped migrate so far, which removal is causing the most real pain?


Key terms defined

Deprecated = still works, but developers are warned not to use it. Replacement is normally available.
Removed/obsolete = no longer supported; code using it may fail to compile, load, or execute.
Unsupported but present = an intermediate state used by some vendors: it may still work, but bugs may not be fixed.
Behavioral breaking change = feature remains, but its semantics change enough that old code may behave differently.



Adobe explicitly distinguishes deprecated, deprecated and unsupported, and removed. Deprecated ColdFusion functionality remains eligible for bug/security fixes; deprecated-and-unsupported functionality generally receives only security fixes; removed functionality is unavailable.

Adobe updated the Compatibility Code Analyzer and Pete Freitag built a dedicated compatibility scanner into Fixinator. How good are these tools actually at catching the gotchas before they hit production, so people aren't finding out the hard way in front of customers?

You spend time on the breaking changes carried over from the March and June 2024 updates, searchimplicitscopes and the encryption algorithm change, plus the old dateformat capital D change from CF2021. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes a CTO put off an upgrade for three more years, one small silent change breaking something nobody tested. For someone jumping straight from CF2018 or CF2021 to CF2025, what's the realistic order of operations, because nobody wants to be Frodo walking into Mordor without Sam and a map?


Java 21 and Tomcat 10.1 landed together. Beyond just being current, what real benefits, or new gotchas, are you seeing CF developers run into?

Quarterly Java updates
Future Java 25 support?
Deploy CF as a WAR requires CF Ent


Looking at the full support matrix, Windows 2025 server is added. Sybase is gone, Solaris is gone, WebLogic and WebSphere are gone. 

Few orgs use these so it was an ROI decision to remove.
For organizations still stuck on those platforms, it's a bit of a fellowship breaking up, everyone has to pick a path forward. What migration paths are you actually recommending?
ZIP install alternative


Past this one release, what should a CIO actually watch for as a signal that Adobe is staying committed to the platform, versus the risk of another long quiet stretch? Nobody wants to migrate now and then find themselves waiting at the gates of Moria for the next real update.
What are you excited about for CF Summit East?

Reston VA near IAD airport



Mentioned in this episode

Hidden Gems in CF 2025 CFmeetup youtube 
ACF 2026 features 
ACF 2026 features (cf2025 update 8)
https://guides.adobe.com/coldfusion/en/docs/introduction-to-coldfusion/whats-new.html
ACF 2025 features
Adobe ACF 2025 features
https://guides.adobe.com/coldfusion/en/docs/introduction-to-coldfusion/whats-new-cf-2025.html
Adobe CF issue tracker
CFMeetup talk on CF 2025 migration
Adobe CF Summit East (TT blog)
https://teratech.com/adobe-coldfusion-2024-new-features/
Adobe CF Summit East

Listen to the Audio

Bio
Charlie Arehart



A veteran server troubleshooter who’s worked in enterprise IT for more than three decades, Charlie Arehart (@carehart) is a longtime community contributor who as an independent consultant provides remote, short-term, and even on-demand troubleshooting/tuning assistance for organizations of all sizes and experience levels (carehart.org/consulting).
Links

X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Web

Interview transcript
Michaela Light
Welcome back to the show. I'm here with famous Charlie Earhart. Saw him recently in Las Vegas at CF Summit, invited him back on the podcast. And we're going to be talking about moving to Cold Fusion 2025. Cheers and challenges. So, if you are one of the very few people on the planet who does Cold Fusion, has not heard of Charlie, he is a veteran. Server troubleshooter. He's worked with enterprise IT for more than three decades, probably four decades at this point, to be honest. And he's also been contributing to the community. He's a great helper in the different ColdFusion communities. He's contributed to multiple ColdFusion books. And he provides remote, short-term, and on-demand troubleshooting, tuning assistance for organizations of all sizes. And experience level. And you can find him at cairheart.org/slash consulting. I'll put that in the show notes at terror tech.com for those of you who want to find it. Welcome, Charlie.

Charlie Arehart
Hey, well, glad to be back. It's been a little while.

Charlie Arehart
Yes. Well, I took a little break, but I'm back from the break now.

Charlie Arehart
Well deserved, I'm sure.

Michaela Light
Yes. So we're going to be talking about. Both ColdFusion 2025 and what I call ColdFusion 2026. Other people call it ColdFusion 2025 update eight. So, and we'll look at the cool things that Adobe released in there. But in particular, we're going to look at some of the hidden things that people may not have noticed. And so what are you excited about in the latest release that came out over the summer?
Read more
 


Michaela Light is the host of the CF Alive Podcast and has interviewed more than 100 ColdFusion experts. In each interview, she asks "What Would It Take to make CF more alive this year?" The answers still inspire her to continue to write and interview new speakers.

Michaela has been programming in ColdFusion for more than 20 years. She founded TeraTech in 1989. The company specializes in ColdFusion application development, security and optimization. She has also founded the CFUnited Conference and runs the annual State of the CF Union

Get the inside scoop on the Into The Box 2025 ColdFusion Conference from Daniel Garcia and Michaela Light. This episode covers the event’s schedule, top speakers, trending ColdFusion and BoxLang topics, exclusive workshops, travel and pricing tips, plus special offers for developers and teams.

Daniel Garcia talks about “Into The Box 2025 ColdFusion conference (all the details)” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive Podcast with host Michaela Light.

“…BoxLang, we first officially announced it last year into the box the first beta of it. It's a modern, dynamically and loosely typed scripting language for multiple runtimes”.



https://youtu.be/RDYMKtq03iQ
Show notes
What is Into The Box conference?

CommandBox, ColdBox, BoxLang, all the Box products by Ortus 
ColdFusion topics too
Smaller conf, very easy to talk to speakers and other attendees

Speakers and Topics

Speaker

Brad Wood
Brian Klass
Curt Gratz
Dan Card
Daniel Garcia
Eric Peterson
Esme Acevedo
Gavin Pickin
George Murphy
Giancarlo Gomez
Grant Copley
Jacob Beers
Javier Quintero
Jon Clausen
Kevin Wright
Luis Majano
Michael Rigsby
Scott Steinbeck


Topics highlights

Integrating OpenAI API in ColdFusion Applications
Reactive Front-Ends with CFML, CBWIRE, and AlpineJS
IoT Hardware Integration with BoxLang and MQTT
Introduction to CBWIRE 4


Open call for speakers

Preconference Workshops

Development and Hosting using Docker, CI, CD, and AWS ECS
Getting Started with Boxlang with Brad Wood, John Clausen, and Luis Majano
Just Enough Workshop
Building Modern Apps with CBWire and AlpineJS with Grant Coplin and Esme Acevedo

When is it?

Wed April 30th - Friday May 2nd, 2025

Where is it this year?

Washington, DC

Why not send devs to conferences?

Dev team too big to send all → send none

Solution: Rotate devs each year. Eg send 3 this year, another 3 next year etc


No training mentality

Solutions
Free video training
CFCasts

Daniel offer for unemployed CFers and students




9-5 Devs "comfortable" who don't want to grow in tech skills

Solutions
Modernize or Die
Be competitive 


Hiring 

Attitude and Aptitude



Open source
Travel

3 airports in Washington DC metro area. Plus Amtrack. 
Metro in the area

Cost

Conf only early bird $349.50, 449.50
$499, 699
25% off promo code CFAlive_2025
Deals and early bird pricing 3/31/25

BoxLang+ 1-year license included! 

Special support for BoxLang
Code scanner
Extra bonus feature




Team Plans are available for businesses - Reach out at Intothebox (at) ortussolutions.com
    **Get 50% off** your second Into the Box on-site ticket.
    **Buy 2, Get 1 Free** – Purchase two on-site tickets, and the third one is on us.

What are you looking forward to at ITB this year?
 
Mentioned in this episode
Into The Box 2025 conf site https://www.intothebox.org/ 

Comprehensive TeraTech blog about ITB https://teratech.com/into-the-box-conference-is-coldfusion-modern-or-dead/ 

140 BoxLang modern JVM language that runs CFML code (new CFML engine and much more) with Luis Majano and Brad Wood

121 How to Get Your Next Ideal CF Job (using LinkedIn, Resume, GitHub), with Doug McCaughan

CFCasts
Listen to the Audio

Bio
Daniel Garcia



Senior Developer at Ortus Solutions 

Daniel Garcia lives in Plainfield, IL, has been working with web technologies since 1997, and is passionate about what he does. He is a husband, father, "Dad"-ager for his aspiring musician son, cinephile, regaler of useless knowledge, smoker of meats, aspiring podcaster, part-time radio DJ, and has an irreverent sense of humor. His mantras are "Work smarter, not harder" and "KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid).
Links

Daniel Garcia | LinkedIn
Ortus Solutions
GitHub Garciadev
https://www.ortussolutions.com/about-us/daniel-garcia
CFML and Box Slack Daniel Garcia

Interview transcript
Michaela Light 0:00
Welcome back to the show. I'm here with Daniel Garcia, and he and I are going to talk about an amazing cold fusion conference coming up real soon. Now called into the box. You may think it only covers box things, but actually covers all kinds of cold fusion things as well. And if you don't know Daniel, he's been doing cold fusion for decades now, probably started bringing in web tech. Yes, decades started in 1997 with web tech, and he loves doing it. He's also a dad got an 11 year old son who's a musician, and he's the manager, or he likes calling him himself, the dad, manager of his son. And he's also a podcaster. DJ has a wicked sense of humor. So welcome Daniel.

Daniel Garcia 0:59
Thank you for having me. Michaela, it's been years since, yes, since

Michaela Light 1:03
we lost on the show. So what is this? Into the box conference? For people, I know what it is, but maybe some people listening don't well into

Daniel Garcia 1:13
the box. So first of all, my name is Daniel gersim With orti solutions. We're one of the premier code fusion consulting companies out there. You've probably heard of us. We're the Box Company, cold box, command box, test box, content box, all that, and into the box. Get it into the box. It's a box theme is our annual developer conference, and so we put it on every year. Last year was the first time you moved to DC with it. Again. This year we're gonna be DC again, but it's our conference to bring together developers, engineers, enthusiasts, basically anyone who works with CO fusion box, laying any related technologies, kind of learn the best practices, networking, discuss trends, things like that,

Michaela Light 1:57
all right. And so will be a lot of things about cold box and command box, and how many box things are these days? Every time I turn around, it seems there's another box, cold fusion library or tool released. Well,

Daniel Garcia 2:10
the quick answer is, I don't know, and I'm gonna get made fun of for that leader by my team, in a good way, but there's a lot of boxes there are. And because not just the main core products, we also have a lot of modules and all sorts of things to get with it, I should have been more prepared. Michaela, I'm sorry

Michaela Light 2:30
if you want that's okay, but there's more than 20, I

Daniel Garcia 2:36
think, right there are a lot the main ones that people know are going to be cold box, command box. Love command box. We love cold box. Dude, content box, test box, stash box, all these, well, they could just go to the website and look at them, but that's less than just no

Luis Majano and Brad Wood talk about “BoxLang modern JVM language that runs CFML code (new CFML engine and much more)” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive Podcast with host Michaela Light.

“…BX is the acronym we use a lot like our file extensions are analogous to the cold fusion file extensions. So a CFM file, we call that bxm For box Lang markup, CMS, which Lucy six had his support for, which is cold fusion script”.



https://youtu.be/T59ElgfjuY8
Show notes
What is BoxLang?

A new language for the JVM that includes CFML
Inspired by cool CF, Groovy, Rust, Go, PHP etc
Compiles into Java byte code, just like CF
A new language for 2024 and beyond
Not just targeting web server - see below for all runtime targets
7 MB core

Tidy and lightweight core

Super fast start up time in 100-200ms
ACF core 120 to 300 MB 
Lucee core 20 to 120 - 300 MB
Node 80 MB


Add on modules for different target runtimes

Similar in ideas to ACF and Lucee packages




Target runtimes

Web Server
Miniserver
Serverless
Jakarta
Android
Web assembly 
Command line use


Modules are designed from the start vs separated out as in ACF or Lucee

Using tight Java libraries that are different from ACF or Lucee libraries


Drastic architecture differences

No OSGi copies

See below for what OSGi is


MVP for this language
Created to be extensive in the core from the start
Not a monolith
Super strict on 3rd party JARs added to the core due to features in the modern JDK

Oracle improvements in Java language and JVM
Java 21 or higher only


Other JVM that are based on Oracle JVM 21 or higher
Fixes old syntax and function naming inconsistencies from CFML backwards compatible
Has two parsers

Antler parser library for BoxLang code
100% legacy CFML code via transpiler


AST = Abstract Syntax Tree

This is what compiles to Java byte code
Linting and code quality metric tool and VS-code extension IntelliSense and semantics of the language.
Open source AST so easy to extend and hook into it.
In-line debugger is built in with scope introspection


Can innovate in BoxLang language without breaking legacy CFML



Transpiling



Dynamic and can continue to edit legacy CFML code
Or one-time translate to BoxLang language (BX)
Can you translate back from BoxLang to CMFL?

Not currently and technically it can be done - it is open source
The syntax is very close to CFML script and tags


Why bx vs cf script
Not tag first language - it is script first then adds components / class (aka tag)



What is it really?



JVM 
100% interoperable with Java

No bridge like ACF or Lucee
Extend from Java classes
Import Java classes


Framework capabilities built into BoxLang

Event-driven programming
Event listeners and extension is built-in


Cache engine built-in

vs added on
Can talk to Redis and Couchbase


Async and parallel programming 

Built into the core from Java
vs adding in Quartz Java library to do this


Easy unit testing of tasks
Keep the CFML productivities of RAD coding
BoxLang templating language

Like Groovy GSP


Most modern JVM language 

More modern than ACF, Lucee OR all other JVM languages such as Groovy, Clojure, Kotlin, Rust etc
Super dynamic language with built-in dynamic concepts from the modern Java engine vs a 3rd party library


Comparison chart to other languages?

Coming in future
Why are most modern languages similar in appearance?

Common programming metaphors over time are used with similar syntax.
But under the hood, they are different engines
Tooling
IDE
Community







Is ACF or Lucee embedded in BoxLang?



No
ACF is closed source
Lucee - separate development. Chinese wall separation of BoxLang development.
Can see the full source code edit history in GitHub which shows it is not a fork from Lucee



What about QA on the language?



6000 automated tests in GitHub



Why did you create it?



A lot of work to make a new compiler etc
Alternatives not taken

Suggest features to ACF

Tried. Too radical a change
Have done for years. They have their own limitations.
Tickets exist for these feature requests


Pull requests to Lucee for a fork

Looked at this for several months 
Lack of docs from the lead of the Lucee open-source project
Major architecture differences with a fresh start
Tickets exist for these features for years




New JVM language without the emotional baggage of taggy CF



Fast release cycles



Weekly release cycles
Lucee monthly releases
ACF annual release plus as needed hotfixes 
CI process to immediate deployment
CommandBox can run different versions of BoxLang, just like it does for ACF and Lucee



What are you looking forward to at CF Summit?



Seeing other CFer
Teaching REST class
Ok to ask questions on the side and let’s respect Adobe CF conference is focused on ACF. 



Addendum - What is OSGi
OSGi, or Open Service Gateway Initiative, is a Java framework that allows developers to create and deploy modular software programs and libraries. It's based on a set of specifications that define a component system for Java, and includes a standard for building modular components called bundles. 
Here are some benefits of OSGi: 

Loose coupling

OSGi focuses on loose coupling of functions, which allows for modular functionalities that can be easily moved between source codes.


Dynamic component model

OSGi implements a dynamic component model that allows applications to be remotely installed, started, stopped, updated, and uninstalled without requiring a restart. 


Microkernel architecture

OSGi utilizes the concepts of a microkernel architecture, also known as a plug-in architecture. 


Reusable components

OSGi allows developers to create applications from smaller, reusable, and collaborative components. 



The OSGi Alliance was originally responsible for managing the OSGi framework, but in early 2021 the Eclipse Foundation took over the OSGi specification. 

 
Mentioned in this episode

TeraTech’s BoxLang overview article 
BoxLang Download - free download and paid options, plus lots of language info
BoxLang Full source code repo on GitHub plus docs and 1000s of test cases
Try BoxLang - similar to TryCF site to try out BoxLang code without having to install it first
BoxLang book - full docs and examples to get you going fast. 

Listen to the Audio

Bio
Luis Majano



Luis Majano is a Computer Engineer who has been developing and designing software systems since 2000. During economic instability and civil war, he was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, in the late 70s. He lived in El Salvador until 1995 and then moved to Miami, Florida, where he completed his Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering at Florida International University.

He is the CEO of Ortus Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in web development, BoxLang, Java development, and open-source professional services. He is the creator of ColdBox, ContentBox, CommandBox, WireBox, TestBox, LogBox, and anything "Box," and he contributes to over 250 open-source projects. He has a passion for learning and mentoring developers so they can succeed with sustainable software practices and the usage and development of open-source software. You can read his blog at www.luismajano.com

Luis is passionate about Jesus, tennis, golf, volleyball, and anything electronic. Random Author Facts:

He played volleyball in the Salvadorean National Team at the tender age of 17
His favorite books are The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (Geek!)
His first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99 that his parents gave him in 1986. After some time digesting his very first BASIC book, he had written his own tic-tac-toe game at the age of 9. (Extra geek!)
He has a geek love for circuits, microcontrollers, and overall embedded systems.
He has, as of late, become a fan of organic gardening.

Links

Luis Majano | LinkedIn
Twitter 
Ortus Solutions

 

Brad Wood



Brad grew up in southern Missouri and after high school majored in Computer Science with a music minor at MidAmerica Nazarene University (Olathe, KS). Today he lives in Kansas City with his wife and three girls. Brad enjoys all sorts of international food and the great outdoors. Brad has been programming ColdFusion since around 2002 and has used every version of CF since 4.5. He is a software engineer at Ortus Solutions, lead developer of CommandBox CLI, and open source contributor.
Links

CFML Slack Box Channel
Box Team Slack Channel
Brad's Website
Brad Wood | LinkedIn
Twitter
Ortus Community Forum
Techempower Nightly Builds

Interview transcript
Michaela Light 01:10
Hey, welcome back to the show. We're here on sea of life with two mega geniuses of cold fusion, Luis majano and Brad wood at water solutions. They're joining us actively Spain and from Kansas, so and I'm right now in Austin, Texas, so we're quite spread out here, but we're here today to talk about box Lang, the new cold fusion engine that is joins the stable of cold fusion engines, of Adobe cold fusion and Lucy, and it's now an alternative to that, which I think, and I'll tell you why I think it's really great thing to have for the Cold Fusion community later. But I'm going to let Luis and Brad talk about that. But before I do if you don't know who Luis is, he is the founder of all his solutions. He's behind a lot of those box products, cold box, you know, wire box, you name it. Box. It's got a box in it. He's probably had his hands in it, except for command box, which Brad....