One new and one updated project this week in ColdFusion open-source but also a number of plugins for a continually growing open source ecosystem in ColdFusion. In other news, it sounds like NCDevCon was a success and I congratulate the team who put the event on, including Dan Wilson, Jim Priest and many others. Hopefully I will get to make it next year.

For today's blog topic I want to stray from my usual programming tutorials and open-source updates to something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately: my career as a developer. I wanted to share my thoughts and hear from other people who may be in a similar situation in their careers. Here's the scenario... I have built a good career over the last 12 years, first as a ColdFusion developer exclusively, then a manager/developer and, for the past 5 or so years, back to being a straight developer specializing in both ColdFusion and, more recently, Flex (for the record, I started my development career doing Flash and Director stuff). I've worked hard to build a solid portfolio and a great network and generally love what I do for a living. Nonetheless, I am left wondering, what is the next step career-wise or is there a dead-end on the developer career path?

For the record and for you recruiters, I am not looking to leave where I am, just looking ahead. Even my current boss asked me what my career goals are and it was a question to which I had no good answer.

One thing that my years as a manager taught me, its that I don't want to be a manager. It's not that I can't handle it and, in fact, I think I did pretty well at it, but I just don't enjoy it. It's always seemed to me an odd paradox of developers that the next step for a developer seems to be a career as an IT manager even though writing code does not seem to be a great preparation for managing people and/or projects or dealing with the many other issues (payroll, personnel issues, etc) that managers are often tasked with. Many developer friends I have spoken to about this topics seem to believe that, at their companies, you either move on to management or you just stay where you are...indefinitely. That seems to me a depressing choice to make at 35.

I've met some folks who have been able to move up to positions as "architects," a position that seems to stay grounded in code but take a higher level view of projects and requirements. This sounds like an interesting career move, but honestly these types of positions seem extremely rare. Most companies I have had experience with are just in the process of updating their development practices and honestly wouldn't know what to do with an architect.

I'm sure there are others out there who are facing similar dilemmas in looking ahead at their careers as I am. I'm happy to invest the time and money on training or even going back to school to move my career forward over the coming years...but before you can commit to something like that, you need a goal in mind. I have (half-)joked that I have a 3 year plan to move my career to the next level, with the first step in that process being figuring out what the next level is.

That's my situation. So what's your career goal and how do you see yourself getting there?

Two new projects and two updates but lots of announcements and tutorials this week in ColdFusion open source. I am sure a lot of you readers are excited preparing for your trips to NCDevCon this weekend. I wish I could go, I just can't make it to every conference out there. Basically, what I am saying is that I am no Simon Free, conference junkie extraordinaire. Methinks Simon probably still has alcohol running through his system from last weekends Flash and the City even as he heads to NCDevCon. Have fun Simon and the rest of you!

The other day someone asked me whether you could use ColdFusion Builder extensions and/or snippets in Flash Builder. The answer is yes. When you have ColdFusion Builder and Flash Builder installed together in the same Eclipse environment, which you should, many features of the IDE can carry over including things like RDS dataview, RDS fileview, snippets and more. However, when it comes to things like extensions, there are some limitations based on my experience. Still, there's enough added value that even you straight Flash/Flex developers who got a copy of ColdFusion Builder with Flash Builder Premium may want to install it. Here's what I've found.

Three new projects and three updates in the world of ColdFusion open source this week. This post was actually done yesterday but I've been unable to get computer access all day while enjoying the Flash and the City conference in New York City. For what its worth, the conference has been a lot of fun so far and I am meeting a ton of people in the Flash and Flex community that I had not previously met and learning plenty of new things. Anyway, this explains why, if you posted something since yesterday around 5, it wouldn't be on this post.