I have been in a really steady relationship for a long time. We started courting in late 1999, and I fell in love very soon after. From there it was nothing but blue skies and rainbows. We spent years together just whiling away the time and enjoying the benefits we each brought to the relationship. But 8 years is a long time. Through 8 years sometimes what seemed so neat and endearing about someone can start to frustrate and annoy you. Activities that used to excite you now find you wishing you were somewhere else. In 8 years there is a lot of time for new to become old. And although the love is still strong, you begin to realize that if feels like something is missing.

That realization is a dangerous thing because it puts you in a mindset that perhaps there is more out there. You start to look at your life in an effort to find out what it is you are missing. You start to long for that feeling of “newness”. And you start to realize that although you have been very happy, a lot has changed in the world around you. You have been wondering around blinded by love and the there are some very attractive alternatives available.

Then one day you are out and about and you see someone new. She catches your eye and you decide to take a better look. Yeah, you feel a little guilty because of your current relationship, but hey its only a look right? But inside you know its not. She has all the strengths you value in your current relationship, but all that newness you have been missing. Next thing you know you are going out of your way to spend time with her. You lie to yourself saying “nothing is going on”, which makes it easier to go back home and not feel guilty. But then one day you decide to run away for the weekend and spend some time with the new girl. Its not serious, its just a fling, right? What can it hurt to take a few days away? Chances are you will just find things that annoy you about the new girl and then it will all be worth it because you can go back to your happy and stable life.

The problem is this: What happens if you go away for the weekend and it turns out the new girl is not just pretty and something new. Turns out she is funny, and quick witted. She is easy to spend time with, and makes mundane tasks seem easy. She gets along with all your friends and she understands the way you think.

Now you realize you have come to a fork in the road. Its not like your current SO is not going to grow and learn new things that you can do together. But she will always have those traits that bother you. You can continue to see both girls, but this is very taxing on your time, and you don’t really get to enjoy either of them fully. You can cut ties and just jump into the unknown with the new girl. You know there are things about her that you love already. And she doesn’t have many of the traits that bother you about your current relationship. Both are about the same age but very different in their attitudes and what they want out of life. But the new one just has such a young and fresh attitude about how to get things done. She is very exciting.

So in the end it comes down to this. What do you do? Pick the new exciting girl that you know will make your life easier. Or do you continue in your complacent relationship knowing there is more out there, but its not worth the hassle to change.

What do you do?

ColdFusion and I have had a long and loving relationship. There are so many things I love about the language and the community. But at the same time I think its really important that we keep an eye out for what we can do to make ourselves more productive. I have been playing with Ruby and Ruby on Rails for about 6 months and I really like the abilities that I am adding to my toolbox. I am a firm believer in Conferences being the best way to jam a lot of information into your head in a short period of time. They allow me to get a pulse on what is going on and where to direct my personal learning time. This last weekend I went to RailsConf 2007 here in Portland. It was just a little getaway. It was some time to play with Ruby on a dedicated level. I wanted to have some time to really get to know her and check out her dark places. I didn’t really think that anything-prolific change would be triggered by the event, but I was wrong. This was one of the best conferences I have ever attended. The sessions were great, the keynotes where insightful and inspiring. In between sessions there were huge groups of people together with laptops out working on projects together. The community spirit was amazing. It felt like a weekend retreat with 1600 of my closest friends. And yes folks, I said 1600. The community around this open source technology is giant. But that is not the point. I realized that for the things I do by professionally and personally, there is very little that I cant do as well or better with Ruby. Nothing has changed about my love for ColdFusion though. I still think it’s a great platform, and the improvements that are coming in CF 8 are amazing. So I am feeling very torn over how I spend the time in my day. And as silly as it is, I feel like I am emotionally attached to the programming language and the community behind it.

I will not be abandoning ColdFusion any time soon. But I think you are going to see a lot more Ruby posts on this blog from now on.