I'm writing this month's editorial myself, but if I wanted to stay true to the focus of the issue, I'd be writing it with a partner, or several. Collaboration is the name of the game in the world of ColdFusion, and in the magazine world as well. It's a team that produces CFDJ, and without them you wouldn't have a magazine. If it weren't for our fantastic team of writers, editorial staff, production designers, and advertising sales folks, we'd be nowhere. Without them you'd be lucky to receive a blank pile of pages each month. With them all, however, we put together a fantastic resource each month, one that we're quite proud of, and one that I hope you enjoy.

If you haven't guessed yet, this month's focus is on collaboration. The thought of collaboration seems a simple one, but in this not-utopian world we live in, it's not always as easy as it seems. What messes up the whole process? Why, people do, of course.

Collaboration is a hot topic these days; as the scale and diversity of projects increase, the need for more knowledge does as well. This need exists on several levels, ranging from small projects to the enterprise. As demands for new site features increase, from Flash animations to mobile access, many of us are using the resources and knowledge of others to help put it all together. That's by no means a knock on those who can do it all themselves. Definitely the more you know, the better off you are, but no one knows it all, and that's why we're here. It's hard to specialize in everything these days, and tapping the experience of someone else can often be an easy way to reduce development headaches. I'm proud to say that I've taken advantage of the assistance offered by others, and my development life has been better and easier because of it. I've also gotten more sleep at night.

Now....onto some highlights of what the team here at CFDJ has in store for you this month.

Hal Helms takes the bird's-eye view of working together in the modern world. E-mail, instant messenger, and the like are all fantastic tools with one problem...they're being used by people! He's got some great tips, tricks, and stories about creating a "Program Definition Language" to get you out of the bind. It's definitely worth a read and, of course, is Fusebox-related as well. If you aren't using Fusebox yet - you should be.

David Keener has written on tracking software issues - using the Web to collaborate on the always tricky art of gathering and fixing bugs in your projects. Along with source code, he provides the schema for making a SQL server-based front-end for tracking issues with your masterpiece in progress. Moving down from a top-level page to projects and issues, with forms for entering all the necessary information, it's an end-to-end solution. If you're building software or working on large projects, especially in a team, you won't regret setting one of these up. It's the easiest way to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Sarge Sargent, who has conveniently (for us at least) traveled near and far to ColdFusion developers around the globe, hits on all the major issues. Experienced from his days at WashingtonPost.com, and several other major projects, he discusses a fantastic development method that I highly recommend.

Also, we've got lots of other articles, from Master Guru Ben Forta and others, that look at utilizing the new features in CF 5.0. Enjoy!