After finally getting Cygwin installed on my Windows XP Pro SP 2 laptop, I discovered how difficult it can be to get large open-source projects to correctly compile under Cygwin.  This was exteremely irritating for obvious reasons.

So I decided to try and install Ubuntu 8.10 under Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.  I had previously installed older versions of Ubuntu this way, but was having some trouble getting 8.10 installed.  After some searching, I found this wonderful post and comment thread.

The short story is, I had to add vga=791 noreplace-paravirt to the grub command line for the initial boot.  Then noreplace-paravirt to /boot/grub/menu.lst after installation and any subsequent updates that modify this file.

My first thoughts on the Alchemy project were of doubt.  What would be the benefit of running C/C++ code on the AVM2?  It seemed more like a novelty, like running old school NES games on the Wii.  The more I started to think about it (and get past my bad memories of Computer Science C/C++ classes in college), the more I started to realize just how powerful this could be.  There are so many open source C/C++ libraries for a wide variety of applications that, when paired with Flash, could have an amazing impact on Flash and AIR.

I thought I would tinker with it a bit.  Of course, coming to the realization that Alchemy is still limited by the Flash player sandbox was a little disheartening, but I suppose understandable.  I found the initial download and setup quite cumbersome.  One of my biggest roadblocks was working with Cygwin.  I admit, that using Cygwin has its advantages, but configuration thus far has been a beast.  Additionally, the getting started section for Windows section left something to be desired in terms of details.  I'm the first to admit I'm no UNIX or Linux expert, but I'd like to think I know my way around a bit.

After a few hours of trying to just get my environment set up, something more important required my attention, so I have yet to get the provided examples working.  I hope to get back to this more in the next couple of weeks.  I've got a few open source C++ libraries I'd love to test out.  I'm extremely intrigued, but until I get my environment set up, I'm still skeptical.

Branden Hall has written a good overview of Alchemy.

On my last trip out to LA for work, I spent some time on the plane brainstorming on the data model and abstraction for gpuds.  I basically want to take the core feature set in the current incarnation of gpuds and abstract it into a "real" ColdFusion application.

I'm starting to realize that most of the ColdFusion development I've done in my career, starting back with CF 4.5 (I think), hasn't really evolved with the evolution of ColdFusion itself.  I'm still writing html/page based apps that require a lot of tedious maintenance and aren't very scalable.  In working more and more with BlogCFC and Mango Blog, I'm realizing some of benefits of CF 7 and 8. 

I think that I knew all along, in theory, how great CFMX was, but never from a practical perspective until I started working on the gpuds framework.  I can't even remember when CFCs were introduced, but aside from facilitating communication from the Flash player to the server, I think I've really been ignorant on why they are so important.

I don't think my applications were ever bad, but they could have been better.  The nature of ColdFusion as a Rapid Application Development platform is what perpetuated my continual use of less-than-efficient application design.  My applications worked and I could crank them out quickly, so why would I bother with any other approach or even framework?

I also think the fact that I'm doing much less development now and more project management is why I'm able to see these things.  I always had a deadline or projects piling up, leaving little time for analysis or post-mortem.  Now that I see these things from a different perspective, I can see all the shortcomings of my approach.

It's amazing to me that I've "discovered" all this in just the scope of working on my gpuds framework, especially considering that I've only just begun!