If you've not yet heard, final production release of ColdFusion 10 was made available today (well, late last night, so the "day" depends on your time zone).
And if you have heard, you may have heard from people who (as is often the case) are raising concerns about something they do or don't like, or they see or don't see. I'd like to address a couple of those points briefly, along with sharing the general announcement.
For more, see all the goodness at the coldfusion.com web site. And yes, if you didn't know it, that's a nice easy-to-use domain name that redirects to the main Adobe CF page. There you'll find lots of content about what's new, including videos on various pages (some of which include yours truly).
What's new? Lots more than you may think
As always, the "what's new" pages are rather meager. You'd think there are only a dozen new features. Of course, Adobe is highlighting what they think may be most compelling to the most people (and to motivate upgrades/purchases.) But I'll note again that there are over 200 new changes or improvements, some little, some big.
I documented those that I'd found after working with the prerelease for some months, in an entry I did back in March:
Charlie Arehart's Ultimate List of 200+ New #ColdFusion 10 Features
I've not yet updated that per the final release, most notably because I can't as yet find any Feature Notes for the final release. The link to "CF10 release notes" currently offered on the CF release notes page (listing all releases) currently goes just to a "known issues document", which is not the same at all. There was a 200+ page true "release notes" PDF for the prerelease, that I hope will be offered somewhere soon, as updated for the final release. (I've raised this concern to Adobe, and will hope to update this when I have new info.)
What's Enterprise only?
As in each release, there will always be consternation with regard to what was released for the Standard Edition and what's held back for the Enterprise (or free Developer) edition. You can find that outlined in a couple of docs on the site. But I have created another entry that tries to save you the trouble: What's new in #ColdFusion 10 that's only in Enterprise? or restricted in Standard?.
Any licensing concerns?
And yes, there are some licensing concerns. Those, too, deserve their own post. More to come later. (Some matters are still being sorted out in terms of folks understanding what they're reading, and whether they're coming to the correct conclusions.)
All in all, CF10 adds lots of new features. Before you listen to any who assert "there's not much there", or "too much is held back for Enterprise only", or "the new licensing sucks", be sure to dig more closely and make an informed decision.
Where to keep an eye out for new info on CF10, created by the community
Just a quick update since I originally posted this: while you can and should check out the Adobe resources I listed above, and my "ultimate list of new features", I'll note that of course many are now (and recently,and will be) posting their own blog entries on what's new, etc.
you can try to keep up with them on twitter, various blog aggregators, etc. But I'll say the best place to keep an eye out is Akbarsait's list of CF10 tutorials, where he basically aggregates all the CF10 documents and blog entries that he comes across. It's an awesome list that he also did for CF9 (and if you may be skipping from CF8 or earlier to CF10, check out that list for mroe on what was new in CF9).
He's not updated his CF10 page in a couple of weeks (as of today, as I write), but I'm sure he will soon be kicking into gear to gather up all the great new stuff coming out today and in coming days/weeks. I just want to make sure people seeing this post know to keep an eye on hist list. I see him as a "brother in arms", as a fellow-resource gatherer, as I have done in my CF resources sites: CF411.com (list of CF tools and resources), CF911.com (list of CF troubleshooting resources), and UGTV (list of CF user group presentations recordings).
Keep up the great work, Akbarsait!