Uncertain Futures
As much as we hate it, our futures are uncertain. We do our best to figure out ways to keep what we know safe and secure. However some times that security gets shaken and sometimes it gets shattered.
From time to time my boss and I talk about open source software. He doesn't really like to look at it as a solution too often. There are many reasons he states, but one that often comes up is product stability. Will it be supported? Is it still actively developed? Good questions, and unfortunately it looks like some security I envisioned in the open source world is getting shaky around a product I just started using. ...
A little while ago I started a new project for work. In fact it was the first project I got the okay to do in Flex/AS3. While I was at it I thought I would take a look at using AMFPHP remoting for it as well, since it is a very server data centric application framework. I used it and loved it. No more serializing complex data structures into XML. No more deserializing and spending so much time creating specialized parsing engines. There was a small learning curve but otherwise, very easy to integrate and use.
Then I read this article on the 5 et demi blog. It seems Patrick Mineault is retiring from programming and the AMFPHP project. Luckily, he will be finishing AMFPHP 2.0 before he is done. Good luck to him on his new endeavors but what will become of AMFPHP? As far as I can see there is nobody in line to take over the project. Should I do it? I really don't believe that would be beneficial to the community at this juncture in my life. He does make a good point about not getting stuck to one software, and I can easily go back to what I was doing before, but this is a good project.
Here are some answers to my questions, at least for myself. First off, AMFPHP will work for current versions of PHP and the Actionscript Virtual Machine. So no big worries there. It is open source, so any bugs that I do run into after the 2.0 release can still be fixed. If the project does die off, it should still find some usefulness for quite some time. Once it is no longer a viable option, there will obviously be better solutions for me to use anyway. In fact, Flash/Flex/Actionscript may not even be the tool I am using so why sweat it. However, it is a good project and I would like to see it live on and evolve into something greater.
Do you know anyone who could take over this project? Can you? Are you willing to help in some way? If you answered yes to any of these questions it's probably a good idea to contact Patrick at 5 et demi and let him know. I'm sure he would be more than happy to toss you the keys to the project.
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Daryl "Deacon" Ducharme is currently "Code Czar" for the Interactive Agency Provis Media Group, LLC which helps organizations enhance identity, connect with customers and increase productivity.
