116 Lucee 6 release features, behind-the-scenes with Zac Spitzer

Zac Spitzer talks about “Lucee 6 Release Features, Behind-the-Scenes ” in this episode of the ColdFusion Alive podcast with host Michaela Light. 

"I'm here with Zac Spitzer from the Lucee Association Switzerland along with some other organizations that I'll tell you about later. And we're going to be talking about some exciting breaking news about Lucee six. All the features in that and when you can get your hands on it. And a bit about behind the scenes on what happens in Lucee and how you can best get support from the Lucee folks."

Show notes

• Lucee 6 beta release

  • Breaking news - early beta in early July
    • Download from https://www.lucee.org/ 
    • Open beta, separate docs site or local docs
      • VS Code and other IDEs read from cfdocs site
    • Free and can sponsor
    • 5.3.9 regression release first
    • Beta length
    • 180 alpha builds
    • https://luceeserver.atlassian.net/secure/GHGoToBoard.jspa?sprintId=58
    • Open collective support

• The Lucee process and his role

  • Lucee Community Manager
  • Jack of all trades
  • Support
  • Lucee docs (originally by Pix8), Zac speeded it up https://docs.lucee.org/ 
  • Build engineer
    • Log4j fix - upgrade
    • Travis.ci migration to GitHub actions
  • Ticket triage
  • Dev schedulers
  • Facilitate Misha to focus on deep (PM)
  • Help Brad Wood on CommandBox integration
  • Learning Java
  • “Code speaks louder than words”
  • Improving dev workflows 
  • QoQ improvements
  • Extensions dependencies → Lucee Lite

• Lucee 6 New features

  • Single context mode
    • Vs current multi-context in Lucee (and one context in ACF)
    • Faster server startup
    • Web sites each have one
  • Json config (from XML)
  • Fixing bad CFML defaults
    • CFLocation AddToken = False is now default
  • Java type UDFs
    • Type = Java
    • Add Java code direct in your CF code!
    • Autowrapping of the Java code
    • Currently Lucee uses OSGI for JARs for dynamic use
  • Subcomponents 
    • Better TryCF.com experience
  • Query of Query
    • Less funky that ACF - more like regular database queries - same semantics 
    • 10x Faster performance (as of 5.3.8) for single table
      • Joins different
    • Future CF functions inside a QoQ query

• Prior announced features in Lucee 6

  • Improve the Startup Time < 0.5s
    • Startup with only One Context halves the startup time
    • Removed old cruf for flash etc
    • Webinfo folder outside the webroot - more secure - smaller and faster
      • Pete Freitag Fuseless llamda helped on this
    • Warmenable = 1 to pre-load these folders
  • Better logging eg in deploy log
    • Log leves errors and info ones
  • Improve the Existing Serverless Deployment (JSR 223)
  • Introduce Headless Deployment for AWS Lambda
  • Project Loom - more parallel threads
    • https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/post/going-inside-javas-project-loom-and-virtual-threads 
  • Add Built-In Support for syslog
  • Hibernate Upgrade to version 5.4 (Ortus supported upgrade for better ORM)
  • Web.cfc for website context 
  • Listeners - queries, mail, HTTP progress listener
  • Admin log viewer - aggregates them 
    • His GitHub or ForgeBox
  • Performance analyzer
    • Enable debug logs
    • Thread debugging for parallel code
    • His GitHub or ForgeBox
  • CF distributed lock across a cluster (Redis server)

• Future improvements

  • Improved Functionality of Futures and Promises
  • Lockdown Settings for Administrators
  • The Use of Lucee will now be Disguised
  • Individual CFTOKEN or CFID Names
  • Introduction of a Password Vault
  • Quarantine mode
  • Add a Default Log Appender which is the Fallback if not configured.
    • Text file vs DataDog etc
  • Event-Driven Architecture
  • Brand New Native Support for JavaStreams (Luis CDstreams does this)
  • Easy use of Java libraries 
  • We love Lucee
• NASA Mars web app in Lucee

• The Lucee Release cycle

  • Point release schedule
    • Monthly vs stable release
    • Full test on the release
    • 5.3.8 long release
    • 6-month release cycle in future
    • Test library of regression code distributed tests for more stable releases - no regressions (errors in release)
    • Send in pull requests
  • Lucee 6 Announced the 2018 CFCamp in Munich
  • Better version numbering - faster major releases
    • LTS (Long Term Support) for prior version
  • Sprints 

• Lucee support tips

  • Search in Google to see if others have solved your problem already
  • dev.lucee.org (searchable by Google)
    • Give what you have tried, give sample code (small), screenshots if appropriate, include error message
    • Test cases in TestBox 
  • Only bring to GitHub after discussing in the above Lucee forum
  • (Alt is Lucee support contract esp new features
  • CF Slack public Lucee channel 
    • Don’t DM support questions to Zac - share with others
    • Don’t Tweet me
• Why are you proud to use CF?
• WWIT to make CF more alive this year?

Mentioned in this episode

• Lucee 6 announced 
• Lucee
• Secrets From the Folks Who Make the Official Lucee CFML Docker Images, with Geoff Bowers
• CFML Secrets with Patrick Quinn (AWS, Lucee and SeeFusion)

 

Bio

•  

Originally from Melbourne, Australia

Lives in Berlin, Germany

CFML Developer since 1996, Allaire CF 2.0

• Senior Software Engineer @ Rasia
  • 80% Senior Software Engineer @ Distrokid
  • 20% Community Manager @ Lucee Association Switzerland

Links

• Twitter
• Lucee profile
• Git Hub profile
• Email zac @ lucee.org