In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: 1. CFUNITED News - new sessions and BOFs, hotel discount ends 4/15/05 2. Powered by Detroit ColdFusion and Flash conference - April 9-10 3. "Strategies for Successful Fusebox Development" interview with Maxim Porges 4. "Welcome to CF" interview with Simon Horwith
Happy coding - Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/ "Creating excellent custom software since 1989" "...what I saw [at CFUN] was incredible, and the buzz was phenomenal. CFUN[ITED] has become the premier CF specific event" - Ben Forta, Macromedia 1. CFUNITED News **************** * New sessions in the "Advanced CF" track - Tom Jordahl (Macromedia Sr. Software Architect, CF) "Creating custom gateways in CFMX 7" * New BOFs - "CF in Government" with Tim Buntel and Dave Grubber of Macromedia - "CF Futures" with Damon Copper and the CF engineering team * Matt Liotta had to change his speaking plans but will will fill his spot with one of our backup speakers. * Only 12 weeks until CFUNITED-05. Timely bird price $549 expires in 23 days on 4/30/05 * 342 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05! * The CFUNITED hotel room block $159 special price ends 4/15/05 use the promo code: CFCCFCA to get this rate Reservations made after that date will cost $179.00 2. Powered by Detroit ColdFusion and Flash conference - April 9-10 ****************************************************************** Want more CF and Flash? Check out the Powered by Detroit Flash/ColdFusion Conference, this weekend April 9-10, http://poweredbydetroit.org/ I will be speaking at it and hope to see you there! 3. "Strategies for Successful Fusebox Development" interview with Maxim Porges ****************************************************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Maxim Porges about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Strategies for Successful Fusebox Development". So why should a developer come to your session Maxim ? Maxim Porges: First off, hello, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about my presentation! I had a great time presenting at the 2004 Fusebox conference, and I'm really looking forward to CFUNITED this year. To answer your question: a developer should come to my session to save themselves frustration, time, and money! I think that there are a lot of developers/development teams out there that have the talent to code phenomenal applications, but may not have the best process for helping their clients and developers build the right solution the first time around. My presentation will show them how to build the perfect application, in one trip, using FLiP (the Fusebox Lifecycle Process). MS: "Fusebox" Lifecycle Process... does that mean that you have to use Fusebox to take advantage of FLiP? MP: Not at all. You will get all the benefits of FLiP even if you don't use the Fusebox framework for your coding. After all, coding is only one small part of the FLiP process - and usually the shortest part of the process, too. MS: So are you saying that I could use FLiP for a Java application, or with .NET? MP: Absolutely! FLiP is an SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) that can apply itself to any software project, for any language, and any framework. You would have the same success using FLiP to scope out a desktop application created in Java or .NET as you would for an RIA implemented using Flex or Laszlo, or a web application written in ColdFusion, JSP, PHP, or ASP.NET. My team likes to build our applications using ColdFusion, but if we started using C#/.NET tomorrow, or decided to build our applications using J2EE and Struts, we'd keep on using FLiP as our SDLC. My team has real world experience using FLiP to build interactive kiosks in Flash, as well as using it for all of our web projects. I've also put it to use for creating desktop Java applications. MS: What is your experience with FLiP? MP: My team discovered FLiP at the 2002 Fusebox conference. Before we started using FLiP, we had a lot of trouble putting together applications that our clients were happy with. It wasn't that we missed requirements; we always built the client exactly what they asked for. Unfortunately, the client never knows what they want until they see it, and once you've built something, it's too late to go back and do things over. FLiP is so good at removing the client/requirement barrier that my team hasn't had a project fail client acceptance in over two years. MS: Wow that is amazing! Is FLiP hard to learn? MP: FLiP is super easy to learn and use if you do it right. In fact, many development shops are probably doing most of the steps in FLiP already - however, they might be doing them in the wrong order, or without the appropriate level of detail. For example, the process my team was using before we started to use FLiP had all of the FLiP steps - we just had the most crucial step (showing the client the application) at the end of the development process instead of the beginning. It's amazing what kind of impact a small change in your process can have on your applications. MS: Does FLiP help you choose which language or framework to use? MP: FLiP places no restrictions on the language(s) or framework(s) you want to use to build your solution. Instead, it helps your team and your client understand the needs for the application as completely as possible, before a single line of code is written. In understanding those needs, you might discover that a desktop application will create a better solution than a web application. I think it's always better if the needs of the application drive the technology used in the solution, rather than the other way around. MS: What kind of problems have you seen people have with FLiP? MP: Although FLiP is quite easy to understand, most people have issues figuring out how to implement FLiP in practice, rather than how to follow it. For example: - What sort of document should you create when identifying Personas and Goals? - How can you create a good Wireframe? - How much effort should go in to the Prototype, and how do you create a formal requirements document from the Prototype for your client to sign? I could go on and on, but rest assured that I cover all of these items and more in the presentation. Developers will leave my presentation with a turn-key set of guidelines to using FLiP right away in their next project. MS: Do the developers who attend your session need to have an understanding of FLiP already? MP: It helps if they have browsed the short introductory page on FLiP at the Fusebox web site http://www.fusebox.org, but there are no prerequisites to the presentation. MS: What do you think is the hardest part about using FLiP? MP: Sticking to the process! FLiP is very easy to follow, but people often want to skip steps and start coding. I was a programmer before I started managing projects (and I still write code every day) so I must admit that I prefer coding over requirements gathering. However, every time my team has skipped a step in the process, it has bitten us in the butt! On the flip side (pun intended), when we follow the process properly, the coding is much more fun: we spend our time writing quality code rather than worrying about details that were missed in the requirements gathering process. MS: How do your clients feel about you using FLiP? MP: Our clients don't usually know what FLiP is, but they always enjoy working with us - not to mention, 70% of the FLiP process is spent interacting with them directly! FLiP is very empowering to the client: they drive the requirement gathering timeline, and have veto power over the way the application looks and feels, how it flows, and what it does. Usually, our clients can't distinguish between the Prototype and the finished product, which means that there are no nasty surprises when the application is delivered. Having a clear idea of what you are building also allows for developers to create realistic deadlines and quality code, so the client is always satisfied with the end result. MS: Are there a lot of people using FLiP? MP: I don't have any statistics, unfortunately, but the room was filled for my presentation at the 2004 Fusebox Conference. The best part was seeing so many people in the session already using FLiP and looking for guidance, rather than being "sold" on FLiP. When attendees were asking questions about problems they had with FLiP, they were all the same problems that my team had encountered as we started out. It was great to get to share our solutions to those same problems, and to hear the perspectives of the other developers that were present during the Q+A session. MS: What else can you tell us about FLiP and your presentation? MP: There are some fantastics tools out there for FLiP, many of which were demoed at the 2004 Fusebox Conference. We use Adalon on my team, which we love, and I've heard great things about Fusebuilder on the Fusebox forums (just to name two). Plus, there are great books about FLiP authored by members of Team Fusebox if you want to get in to more detail. Finally, I'm honored to have Jeff Peters and Sean Corfield as my presentation buddies. We got our first taste of FLiP in Jeff's presentation at the 2002 Fusebox Conference, so in many ways we owe our success to him! And of course, Sean needs no introduction as one of the sharpest minds in the community. With Jeff and Sean on board, I'm sure we'll have a great Q+A session following the presentation. MS: That is great - see you at your session! You can see more interviews at http://www.cfunited.com/interviews.cfm CFUNITED- 05 is Wed 6/29/05 - Fri 7/1/05 in Bethesda MD, just outside Washington DC. It costs $549 until 4/30/05 then $649. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Strategies for Successful Development with FLiP ************************* Your client is relying on you to build them the perfect solution, and they want it yesterday! You promise to meet expectations by delivering a working, maintainable application on time and on budget, while maximizing the productivity of your team. But doing things right the first time is hard. Clients can't make up their minds, developers and project managers don't always understand each other, and scope creep pushes your timelines and your development costs off the charts. The good news is, there is a perfect solution - and it's easy! It's called FLiP (the Fusebox Lifecycle Process), and you don't need to code with Fusebox to reap its benefits. In this session, Maxim will take you through every step of FLiP. You'll learn how it will help your team and your clients move through a lifecycle that delivers maximum productivity and perfect solutions every time. You'll leave the session with tips, best practices, and a turnkey solution for using FLiP successfully on your next project. Speaker Bio: Maxim is chief architect for web development at CFI/Westgate Resorts. Max is an expert with Java, ColdFusion, Oracle, and team development, and has designed and developed everything from payment processing systems to online travel sites, interactive kiosk solutions, client/server chat software, and a form validation framework for web and desktop applications. After becoming frustrated with a failing SDLC, Max's team learned of FLiP at the Fusebox Conference in 2002. Since implementing FLiP, they have never looked back. They learned many valuable lessons in project management and system design along the way, and Max is eager to share their experiences. Max is the User Community Advocate for Adalon Application Design Studio from Synthis Corporation, and contributes his knowledge regularly to ColdFusion community forums. Max is on the IT Advisory Board for Valencia Community College in Orlando, FL. He is currently working on several side projects, including writing an AOP framework for ColdFusion Components, and developing best practices for using the Java Spring framework with ColdFusion. 4. "Welcome to CF" interview with Simon Horwith *********************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Simon Horwith about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Welcome to CF". So why should a developer come to your session Simon? Simon Horwith: CFML, ColdFusion Mark-up Language, is the language used to create ColdFusion Applications. This session is a good introduction to the fundamentals of the CFML programming language. If you're new to ColdFusion or are a manager that is either evaluating ColdFusion as a solution or is already managing a ColdFusion project, my talk will give you a solid understanding of how to create dynamic web pages with ColdFusion. MS: So are there any prerequisites to this talk like HTML or SQL? SH: No - no prerequisits. If you're familiar with HTML then you'll find ColdFusion's syntax less foreign at first, and some SQL knowledge neverr hurts, but if you don't have any experience with either you will still be able to learn the basics of ColdFusion development. MS: What kinds of things can you do with ColdFusion? SH: Well, there isn't much that you can't do with ColdFusion, really. That said, 90% of ColdFusion applications are all about taking data stored in a database and presenting it on the web (the phrase "dynamic web pages" is generally used to describe this) as well as giving people a way to add, edit, and/or delete that data as well. This session is an introduction to ColdFusion, but in 50 minutes it will teach you the basics of how to do just that - create dynamic web pages. This is because the strength and popularity of ColdFusion has always been in it's ease of use. Learning how to do what 90% of the applications are doing in just 50 minutes isn't too shabby, is it? MS: No, that is cool! Will you have any example code in your session? SH: Oh yes - definitely. I'll be writing code throughout the session. I'll show all of the fundamentals of what to do and what not to do with regards to creating and outputting variables, using functions, talking to databases, and more! MS: Can you give us a quick peak at some ColdFusion code so that we can see how easy it is? SH: Well, understanding the code is certainly more important, and you'll have to come to the session for that, but it is very simple syntax. Fr example - the code to take a static HTML table and turn it into a dynamically generated table containing all of the employees in a database might look something like this: (angled brackets replaced by square brackets to get through my email program! - MS) [cfquery name="qGetEmp" datasource="mydsn"] SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY firstname [/cfquery] [table] [tr][th]First Name[/th][th]Last Name[/th][/tr] [cfoutput query="qGetEmp"][td]#qGetEmp.firstname#[/td][td]#qGetEmp.lastname#[/td][/cfoutput] [/table] It's as simple as that - one tag to get data from the database, an HTML table with one row of static headers and one row that is in a [CFOUTPUT] tag and has values from the query inside it's cells. Easy as pie! MS: That looks like it will be a great session. See you at CFUNITED! You can see more interviews at http://www.cfunited.com/interviews.cfm CFUNITED- 05 is Wed 6/29/05 - Fri 7/1/05 in Bethesda MD, just outside Washington DC. It costs $459 until 4/30/05 then $649. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Welcome to CF ************************* Get an overview of the ColdFusion language CFML and the power available to you. Whether you are coming from another programming language or are new to programming this talk will get you up to speed on the basics of programming in CF. Speaker Bio: Simon Horwith is Chief Information Officer at AboutWeb, LLC. - a Washington DC based company specializing in staff augmentation, consulting, and training, and is the Editor-in-Chief of ColdFusion Developer's Journal - the only magazine in print devoted exclusively to ColdFusion. Simon has been using ColdFusion since version 1.5 and is a Macromedia Certified Master Instructor and Member of Team Macromedia. He specializes in ColdFusion application architecture, including architecting applications that integrate with Java, Flash, Flex, and a myriad of other technologies. In addition to presenting at CFUGs and conferences around the world, he has also been a contributing author of several books and technical papers. You can read his blog at www.horwith.com. Tell your friends about CFUNITED-05 - pass this email on ---- Check more about CFUNITED at: http://www.cfunited.com/ We have: * 3 days * 7 tracks * 20 sponsors * 64 sessions * 1000+ attendees * 100% nicer hotel * Includes lunch each day and open bar reception We have seven tracks this year: * Bootcamp - Basic ColdFusion and Flash topics * Advanced - Advanced ColdFusion topics (Blackstone included!) * Manager/Empowered - Fusebox and Project management topics * Integration - Flash, Flex and other technologies integrated with CF topics * Accessibility / usability - section 508, CSS and disabled access * Deployment - tuning, install issues, OS, picking a database * CF Platform Integration - interop with Microsoft and other technologies The timely bird price of $549 for CFUNITED-05 ends 4/30/05. Save upto $400 by registering now! * Early Bird $449 til 2/25/05 * Timely Bird $549 til 4/30/05 * Regular $649 til 6/10/05 * Late $749 til 6/28/04 * At the door $849 Register today at http://www.cfunited.com/ -- Due to TeraTech's growth we are seeking winning sales people to sell custom software. For more details: http://www.teratech.com/index.cfm?go=About.JobDetail&JobID=3 Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc 405 E Gude Dr Ste 207, Rockville MD 20850 Voice: +1-301-424-3903 x110 Fax:301-762-8185 Web: http://www.teratech.com/sig/ Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 66057682 Winner in CFDJ awards Best Consulting. Member Team Fusebox. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. 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