eWeek has published an extensive article on ColdFusion 8 including the following quotes from me:

"ColdFusion 8 is the most significant release since the platform moved to a Java back end and includes significant improvements for both the front and back ends of applications," said Sam Farmer, director of engineering at Washington-based Interfolio, an early user of the technology. "We have rebuilt our product on ColdFusion 8, and the capabilities of the language have sped up our development and allowed us to provide functionality we would not have included had we been working with an earlier version.

"The new AJAX functionality has allowed us to make our user interface both richer and more responsive," Farmer said. "[What is] great about the ColdFusion AJAX implementation is it can either complement your JavaScript skills or you can get great functionality without writing a line of JavaScript.

"One issue with AJAX or Flex applications is that debugging what is happening on the server can be very difficult," Farmer said. "But with ColdFusion 8 I can use the new ColdFusion debugger in Eclipse, the JavaScript debugger in my browser or the extended capabilities of cfdump to get a real-time informative view of what is going on."

This really is an amazing release and there is so much new stuff that when the reporter asked "What stands out about it?" I could have gone down many different paths (which I will be blogging about in the next couple weeks). It is also why, when asked, I was happy to help Adobe out with marketing efforts.

Go to the Adobe Labs page, download the beta and/or check out the Whats New in ColdFusion 8.