Namaste, ColdFusion
In conversational Hindi, 'namaste' generally means 'hello' but can also be used to say 'goodbye'. On my annual pilgrimage to India this year, I came thinking that it would have the former meaning in the sentence 'Namaste, ColdFusion' but am sad to say that the latter holds more true. Put simply, Adobe appears to have lost the server-side programming language popularity contest in India.
Before coming I noticed a small rise in the number of emails I receive from companies in India offering outsourcing of CF development. This led me to believe that perhaps Adobe was successfully marketing the product in the Indian sub-continent. Though I can't really say they aren't doing so, my observations upon arrival tell a very different story. I visited 8 different large bookstores in New Delhi - the same bookstores that I visit every year on my trip. This year, for the first time, 7 of the 8 bookstores didn't have a single book about ColdFusion. It'd be nice to think that this is because the CF books are flying off the shelf, but that's not the case. Yes, I did inquire about this just to make sure, and the story was the same each time: CF books aren't in demand and the stores have no intention of carrying them. Every store had a decent selection of books on AJAX, Javascript, Java, PHP, and .NET of course - with PHP and .NET appearing to be the two platforms with the best presence.
It was no surprise that there were books on Flash, given it's popularity. What I was pleasantly surprised to find however, was the popularity of books on Flex and ActionScript. I haven't seen many emails from companies offering Flex outsourcing yet, but don't be surprised if we see an increase in Flex outsourcing resources in the near future.
In addition to perusing bookstores, I did talk with some relatives and friends who are in IT in Delhi, and my observations do seem to be on par with reality. I should give a disclaimer that these are merely observations I made on my visit: feel free to take them with a grain of salt or to make whatever assumptions you want from them.
Before coming I noticed a small rise in the number of emails I receive from companies in India offering outsourcing of CF development. This led me to believe that perhaps Adobe was successfully marketing the product in the Indian sub-continent. Though I can't really say they aren't doing so, my observations upon arrival tell a very different story. I visited 8 different large bookstores in New Delhi - the same bookstores that I visit every year on my trip. This year, for the first time, 7 of the 8 bookstores didn't have a single book about ColdFusion. It'd be nice to think that this is because the CF books are flying off the shelf, but that's not the case. Yes, I did inquire about this just to make sure, and the story was the same each time: CF books aren't in demand and the stores have no intention of carrying them. Every store had a decent selection of books on AJAX, Javascript, Java, PHP, and .NET of course - with PHP and .NET appearing to be the two platforms with the best presence.
It was no surprise that there were books on Flash, given it's popularity. What I was pleasantly surprised to find however, was the popularity of books on Flex and ActionScript. I haven't seen many emails from companies offering Flex outsourcing yet, but don't be surprised if we see an increase in Flex outsourcing resources in the near future.
In addition to perusing bookstores, I did talk with some relatives and friends who are in IT in Delhi, and my observations do seem to be on par with reality. I should give a disclaimer that these are merely observations I made on my visit: feel free to take them with a grain of salt or to make whatever assumptions you want from them.
(There is the Ext JS book that Cutter co-authored which mentions CF, but it's not really a CF book).
Justin: I haven't seen as many books published with the release of CF 8 that some prior releases were accompanied by, but there certainly are books available.
Akbarsalt: I certainly was disappointed to see the lack of CF books - these very same stores kept CF books stocked all the prior years I've been here. I agree that the documentation supplied by Adobe is by far the best reference(s) available... and I don't doubt that the selection of CF books in the stores is better in some of the more IT centric cities like Bangalore. That still doesn't account, however, for the apparent decline of availability of CF books in Delhi, when there once was a plentiful selection in nearly every store. As I said though, it's merely an observation and, hopefully, not an entirely accurate representation of ColdFusion's use within IT organizations in Delhi or India at large.
But Indian's will learn whatever is in demand, so more than books, Adobe needs to keep talking up CF over JSP, .net, and PHP.
You may be right, Sami. I drive through Noida on every visit (on my way to rural U.P.) but haven't ever stopped to visit book stores there. That said, Noida, Bangalore, etc. are better known as IT hubs largely because it's where the multi-national companies (Adobe, Microsoft, IBM, etc.) have their R and D centers. There are a huge number of Indian IT companies in Delhi - more small to mid-size than massive ones though. These are the companies I'd hope have better access to CF books. In Bangalore or Noida, for example, whether there are a ton of CF books in the stores or none at all, I'd think you'd find plenty of copies in the Adobe offices - and any other international company with use for them.
I've been working in Coldfusion from past 7 years and the demand for cf is very less in India,very few companies(wipro,csc,ca,ness,tech mahindra,hcl,zensar,syntel and few more small organizations) have some projects(accomodates 2 to 5 members). You can find books in Hyderabad in all major book stores( or Koti market)
It was also hard for me too to find a coldfusion certification book in mumbai when i was preparing for CF8 certification.
however i was able to find a shop which had a coldfusion 8 book in Thane(Mumbai).