> Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Hmmm....I think
> perhaps I got my sentiments across.
Of course, you're welcome!
> Unfortunately the book that I had only spent about two
> paragraphs on cookies. Is there any place I can go to learn
> more about creating Web Applications?
Unfortunately, I don't have such a quick answer for this question. There are
lots of areas of knowledge pertinent to web development, all of which you'll
have to know to some degree or other to be competent in your field. I'll
provide a short breakdown of the more important areas.
1. ColdFusion
Obviously, you're using CF, so you should know the basics of CF development.
There's no shortage of resources here. There are courses offered by Allaire
and others. (Disclaimer: Fig Leaf offers the Allaire course curriculum.)
There are adequate books (in all honesty, I'm not a big fan of any specific
CF books; there's no book that meets the "O'Reilly standard" in my opinion),
and there are plenty of people to ask, right here on this list.
2. Database design and SQL
CF development is database development, so you'll need to know how
relational databases work, and how to write efficient SQL statements. I
don't know of any courses that really address this need, although I'm sure
there are some. There are, on the other hand, many books of excellent
quality on this topic. "Database Design for Mere Mortals" comes to mind on
the topic of drelational database theory. I don't know any good general
introductory SQL books, but I can think of several intermediate-to-advanced
SQL books, such as the recently mentioned "SQL for Smarties" by Joe Celko.
If you're primarily working with a specific database such as SQL Server, you
might want to get something that covers that platform. For example, there's
an excellent O'Reilly book, "Transact-SQL Programming", which addresses the
T-SQL dialect used by Microsoft and Sybase SQL Servers.
3. Client-side technologies
This would include HTML, JavaScript, Java, ActiveX, Flash, and whatever else
you're interested in that runs in the browser. It's important to know the
basics of HTML, but fortunately there isn't that much to know about HTML.
JavaScript is essential for complex interfaces, so you should get a good
book on that. I recommend "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" by David
Flanagan, published by O'Reilly. It's the only book I've seen that really
explains JavaScript as a language, rather than as a bunch of things you can
do. I don't know of any good classes on JavaScript right now. If you're
interested in using Flash as an interface tool, there's lots to learn about
that; there are also plenty of good Flash classes. (Disclaimer: Fig Leaf
offers the Macromedia course curriculum.)
4. Network and OS potpourri
When you write CF applications, you're writing network applications. There
are many useful things to know about the environment in which your
application runs. Some of these things:
a. how HTTP and CGI work - HTTP request/response headers, etc. You can learn
this stuff by reading RFCs or by using network sniffers, among other
ways.
b. how your OS works, and how the web server interacts with it. You can
learn about your OS by using it, or by taking lots of expensive classes,
which might be worthwhile if you have to know a lot about your OS.
c. how web servers interact with authentication systems (OS, LDAP, or other
stuff). Most of this stuff, you simply learn by doing.
Of course, there's lots of other things to learn - this is just the
beginning. This may depress some people, but it shouldn't. Instead, you
should be happy that you're in a field which isn't static; you will never
know it all, but you'll never get bored.
Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
http://www.figleaf.com/
voice: (202) 797-5496
fax: (202) 797-5444
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