I want to be able to use code I work with from my games, applications and internet sites when I program server-side logic.

Please Adobe give your programmers the ability to write server-side code in a living language!

<Database id=”products1″ table=”productsTable” sort=”price” />

<DataGrid dataProvider=”products1.lastResult” />

I don’t like writing server side code. There are a bunch of reasons it sucks.

1. You are effectively breaking your application code into two or more separate pieces that have to talk to each other.
2. Tooling for server side technology has been lacking in many ways behind client side technology
3. Debugging bites
4. Conversion between data types and creating value objects sucks

To break it down it feels like a waste of time. I should be able to easily get or put data on the server without having to jump through hoops. Maybe I’m lazy or maybe I’d like my efforts to be efficient. I dunno. :P

Flex is a component architecture. So, in a perfect world, the database and server side logic could be wrapped up in “Database” component MXML tag and it’s recordset (array collection) bound to other components dataprovider property. Simple two or three lines of code.

For example:

And so what if SAS was enabled in CF back in 2003? Flash Communication Server (now FMS) enabled the same thing even earlier. Doesn’t change the fact that coding SAS in ActionScript 1 sucks wind. (No typing? No classes? Prototypes?)

And if some developers feel that allowing SAS and AS in the same file is a bad idea… well it is, if you’re coding an enterprise app. I also would not create an entire Flex application in one MXML file using the Model tag for my data, either. Doesn’t change the fact that creating AS and SAS in the same file is a neat feature. Isn’t that why ColdFusion was created in the first place? To make it simpler and easier for developers to create quickly prototyped, powerful backend solutions very easily? That’s like the pot calling the kettle black.

Man, am I like the only one who gets how cool this is?

And, as Rick notes, some SSAS has been in CF since 6.1 in 2003.

Given the push in Centaur for making CFscript a first class language, I’m not sure how valuable the ability to run AS on the server-side will really be. I think it’s premature to get excited about the sneak peek.

@Rick: LOL, I get it: old news to CF developers, but news to me. I’ve never paid much close attention to CF, and coming from the Flash/Flex side of things, it just seemed like a dream come true to have server side ActionScript 3.0, not in the context of a CF application, but from the perspective of a Flash/Flex/SWF application on the client-side, and in Flex Builder when I’ve been waiting for years for someone, anyone , please do something with FMS’ crappy AS1 SSAS.

But as Ben Forta reminded me when I bumped into him tonight, thanking him for bringing this about, he said (paraphrasing) “Well, just because we demoed it doesn’t mean it’ll be in the final product. We may completely change our minds about it.”

Which I suppose is the safe thing to say, given that it’s pre-alpha. But considering how long people have been asking for it, and that they showed it to us, I think it highly unlikely that it will go away. Just that tags and code demoed might not be the same in the final release.

Which is why it’s called a “sneak peek” and not an open alpha, or beta.

What was more interesting was in an earlier session today they showed the CF9 will be able to expose certain tags as webservices that you’ll be able to reference through a cf namespace in mxml. So you do things like:
or that let you tap the power of the server to generate PDF’s or images and return that data directly to mxml/as3 without having to create a proxy cfc.

The serverside actionscript seems mostly like an old feature that they are revising to support a bunch of new features. The other one being the persistence framework they are building in CF9 that will allow it to manage persistence of data in local AIR Sqlite db’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a huge thing for cf, but I feel like it’s only a complimentary part of some much larger features they are building into CF9.

I was following the Sneak Peaks via the live blog from Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten (http://www.webkitchen.be/2008/11/19/live-blogging-max-2008-sneak-peak-session/), which was great, but it was point form without many details. So when Server Side ActionScript came up, they failed to mention how it would run, which left me wondering what kind of server was handling that code.

Also while waiting for the event to start they took a random picture of the audience, which if I’m not mistaken is a picture of you in the middle:
http://media.coveritlive.com/media/image/200811/j8ZgFTjppTDSC00003.JPG
:)