I don’t see how anyone in the CF community could have missed the news, but just in case, you can now download beta versions of ColdFusion 9 and the new Eclipse-based IDE, ColdFusion Builder, from Adobe Labs.
The very clever Kai Koenig and I collaborated on an article for SitePoint on What’s New in ColdFusion 9? – I did the ORM and AJAX bits. If you are one of the first 200 people to finish the brief quiz, you’ll get a ColdFusion evangelist’s kit. I’m not sure what’s in it but it sounds good, right?
Due to the brief overview nature of the article, the ORM stuff is very, very sketchy – it’s meant to be just a brief explanation of what it is and basically what’s involved, not an actual tutorial. Mark Mandel, the guru of all things ORM, has written an excellent introductory tutorial for Adobe Labs, Introducing ORM in Adobe ColdFusion 9 beta that I highly recommend you check out if you’re interested in the topic.
Other than that, the blogosphere is buzzing with news about the release – exciting stuff!