Andy Powell on AIR, Merapi, Centaur and Flex Camp Miami

Flex Camp Miami is only two weeks away (only $30 for a full day including lunch - register today!) and since we have a really amazing lineup of speakers, I have been taking advantage by interviewing them about their sessions and other topics of interest. Today I am interviewing Andrew Powell of Universal Mind. Andy was a speaker at my previous Flex Camps and he is well known for speaking at a variety of conferences such as 360|Flex, MAX, CFUnited and cf.Objective() among others. Andy is a contributor to the Merapi project, which he will be speaking about, and the winner of the 360|Flex API Contest: Ribbit Category.

Brian Rinaldi
Your talk on Merapi was arguably the most popular session at Flex Camp Boston, especially because you bring props! Can you tell people who have not had the chance to see it what they can expect at Flex Camp Miami?

Andrew Powell
There's going to be a bit of everything.  A bit of Flex, a bit of Java, and a lot of really cool demos.  I like to show people how Merapi allows you to think way outside the box when it comes to mashups.  What you'll see is a whole new category of mashups:  hardware and software, all enabled by AIR & Merapi.

Brian Rinaldi
And you have a new robot you are bringing this time?

Andrew Powell
Yes, we decided that world needed two Merapi robots, so I went out and got my own Lego Mindstorm kit.  From that, I created a new robot, which, in all honesty, is a pretty aggressive machine in comparison to the current robot. We're planning on a robot wars encounter the next time the two robots get together.

Brian Rinaldi
That would be awesome. You need to videotape this!

Can you describe what Merapi is for anyone who is unfamiliar?

Andrew Powell
Merapi is a bridge between Java applications on the desktop and AIR applications or Flex apps in the browser.  It allows your RIAs to have access to system level resources such as hardware that you wouldn't otherwise have access to with RIAs.

Brian Rinaldi
Is Merapi ready for production use? If so, has anyone produced a public AIR application using it that you can share?

Andrew Powell
Merapi is currently in a public Alpha phase, however there is a high-profile public application using it.  Tour De Flex, which allows you to browse community based Flex components from Eclipse.

Brian Rinaldi
Very cool. How do you go about getting involved with Merapi (i.e. getting on the alpha)?

Andrew Powell
Anyone who wants to get involved can go to merapiproject.net and sign up for the alpha.  Once approved, you will be given access to the SWC and JAR and can start developing Merapi applications.

Brian Rinaldi
On a different topic, you've mentioned that lately you have been moving towards using ColdFusion more for the integrated services than for actual back-end code. Can you explain a bit?

Andrew Powell
It all started with a presentation I gave at cf.Objective() last year about Enterprise MVC with ColdFusion and Java.  Bascially I showed how you can use ColdFusion for the presentation layer and Java with Spring and Hibernate at the model and persistence layers.  It really missed a lot of people, but there are a few people who caught on to the concept and really ran with it, taking it in some pretty cool directions.  Well, after cf.Objective() last year, I was really geared into looking at using a hybrid ColdFusion/Java approach to application development.  As I got more and more into the Java layer, and started having some conversations on the true nature of ColdFusion (a J2EE web app), I started to have second thoughts.  My mindset from there went to why do I need ColdFusion at all?  So, I started to primarily develop applications in Java,  using Flex as the RIA front end.

After doing a lot of that Java work, however, I got frustrated with some things like how difficult it was to create a PDF, or send an email.  Even with Spring, these things were a bit tedious.  These are things that ColdFusion does really well though.  So at that point, ColdFusion came back into the picture as a provider for special services like mail, PDF generation, etc. that ColdFusion does well and does easily.

From a Flex client perspective, it doesn't really matter what the middle tier is because it's all RemoteObject calls that we're making to either the BlazeDS server or ColdFusion.  That's the beauty of Flex, it's easy to hook into either platform at the middle tier because we have the commonality of AMF based RemoteObject calls.

Brian Rinaldi
In recent ColdFusion 9 (aka. Centaur) presentations, they have mentioned making these services (such as PDFs, Reports, Email) available as services easily accessible via a web service and remoting API (i.e. without needing to create a wrapper). I assume you are in favor of this kind of change? Do you think it will positively impact the growth of ColdFusion or just get more people to do what you are doing?

Andrew Powell
In my mind, this is the best part of ColdFusion 9.  It will allow quick and easy access to all the so-called "special services" in ColdFusion.  This will be great for the Flex community as well as the ColdFusion community, but I think it may be one of the more under-rated features discussed for ColdFusion 9.

Brian Rinaldi
But to the second half of my question, do you think it will cause more CF people to move to other languages like Java for their back-ends or vice versa?

Andrew Powell
I don't think it will cause people to migrate away from their current language completely, but it will cause people to consider ColdFusion as an additional service provider at the services layer.

Brian Rinaldi
I agree with you and hope you are right.

Andrew Powell
Well, only time will tell, but I think ColdFusion has a great champion now with the appointment of Adam Lehman as the Product Manager.  He's got a great passion for ColdFusion and will be a good steward and champion of the product in a wide range of developer communities.

Brian Rinaldi
And my final question is, will the killer Merapi robot be joining us for drinks after the event?

Andrew Powell
JoJo is underage, but maybe we can get him a fake Robot ID.

Brian Rinaldi
Well, thanks for the interview and I look forward to seeing you in two weeks at Flex Camp Miami!

Andrew Powell
Same here.  I'll see you in two weeks!