Another year and another cfObjective is behind me. Every year this conference gets better and this year was no exception. The location is great (even with it under heavy remodeling), the food was great (although did they really need to feed me half a chicken on the last day!), and of course, the content continues to be very well done and very interesting. My thanks to the entire team at cfObjective for their hard work and dedication in helping create this year's conference.

While I attended many sessions, here is a short list of what I thought was interesting and my take aways from each:

• Simeon Bateman presented on "Enterprise JavaScript Applications" and Node.js. His first presentation was a good overview of the tools that can help you build JavaScript applications. He demonstrated multiple things, including Backbone. I've seen that before but I think I'm going to play around with it a bit more. As for Node - I don't think I've been shy about my disappointment around Node. Not so much in the technology but how it is 'marketed' and presented to other developers. Sim did show the classic HTTP server example (the one I complain about), but then moved into much more interesting areas with his discussion of Connect and Express. I found these pretty interesting, but then Sim went on to discuss where he thought Node.js could be most useful - as a complement to other server-side languages (like ColdFusion) by providing highly performant network type services (like websockets) via Socket.io. He focused on the practical use cases for Node and that to me is what really made it seem better.
• I only caught one presentation by Elliott Sprehn, but it was a good one. He talked about "Production Ready JavaScript" and some of the issues you face when you get past the 1000-line mark in your JavaScript files. I found his discussion of testing and logging of user actions in JavaScript fascinating. I plan on trying to implement, and blog, some of the things he discussed.
• Charlie Arehart gave a great talk on ColdFusion under Tomcat. I really had no idea how much Tomcat could do.
• Mark Mandel talked about Closures in ColdFusion 10 and blew my mind. I'm not discussing it here because it was too much. I've got another blog entry just on that for later this week.
• I had seen Dave Ferguson talk on security before - but it is always a good idea to be reminded of just how much work is involved in creating a secure site. I especially liked his fact versus myth approach.
• I saw Scott Stroz present on "How to Pimp Out Your Model" and PhoneGap. I've seen the first presentation before, but I really enjoy how he brings the concepts of MVC to a simpler, easier to understand level. I'm still approached by people having trouble wrapping their heads around the concept and if you can see Scott present on it - do so. Obviously I'm already familiar with PhoneGap, but Scott's presentation was very polished and has encouraged me to bring mine up to a higher level.

There were even more great presentations, but as I have to go catch the Super Shuttle I'm going to wrap it up here. I've said it before but I'll say it again. cfObjective is an incredible conference and well worth your money and time. I cannot encourage my readers enough. Whether you want to learn more about ColdFusion or JavaScript, it is a great opportunity to both learn and network.