In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: 1. CFUNITED News - Macromedia Platinum sponsor, hotel 75% full, timely bird price ends 4/30 2. Pre-conference classes and MMUG manager conf registration is open 3. Win a ticket to CFUNITED 4. "Frameworks: Mach II or Fusebox 4.1?" interview with Sean Corfield 5. "Integrating CFML and ASP.NET Server Controls" interview with Charlie Arehart
Happy coding - Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/ "Creating excellent custom software since 1989" "If this is your first time, you will be very happy. CFUN is the best CFML conference - period. ... consistently I can say CFUN is the one most worth your money" - Raymond Camden, Mindseye, Inc (formerly Jedimaster at Macromedia) 1. CFUNITED News **************** * Macromedia is Platinum level sponsor of CFUNITED. http://www.cfunited.com/exhibitors.cfm The whole CF development team is coming to speak and to hear your feedback on CFMX 7! There will also be a Macromedia and Aboutweb community corner where you can kick back, chat with engineers or check email. And special Macromedia prizes and goodies! * Ben Forta and Tim Buntel to give opening keynote at CFUNITED. * Sandra Clark CFUNITED video interview released at http://www.cfunited.com/ * Session schedule posted at http://www.cfunited.com/images/schedule_tracks.pdf * Only 11 weeks until CFUNITED-05. Timely bird price $549 expires in 17 days on 4/30/05 * 365 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05! That is a lot more than this time last year for CFUN-04! * The CFUNITED hotel room block has only 50 rooms left on Tues, Wed and Thurs Book today to get a room at the conference hotel. Last year many attendees couldn't get a room at the hotel - don't be left out! The $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 (if you can get them at all!) * Powered by Detroit ColdFusion and Flash conference went great last weekend. Over 120 attendees learned about what will come in Flash 8 and hidden features of CFMX 7. I had a good crowd for my Project Management talk. I met a lot of speakers and MMUG managers and the one question on everyone's lips was "Are you going to CFUNITED? Don't miss it - it is THE CF event of the year" 2. Win a ticket to CFUNITED *************************** To enter the competition for a free ticket (a $549 value) just take the survey at: http://www.cfunited.com/survey.cfm It only takes a minute to complete. Anyone who completes the survey will be entered to win a free place at CFUNITED-05. The winner will be chosen based on answering the questions correctly together with the best answer to the question "Why should people come to CFUNITED-05?" The winner will be selected on April 22nd. If you don't win you can you can still register at the timely bird price of $549 before 4/30/05 3. Pre-Conference classes and MMUG Manager conference registration open *********************************************************************** Want to learn even more from an expert CFUNITED speaker? Then check out the pre-conference classes at: http://www.cfunited.com/classes.cfm * Monday 6/27 10am - 5pm Hal Helms - Designing and Developing OO Applications with CFCs Simon Horwith - Roll Your Own API - Maximizing Code ReUse with CFCs and Custom Tags Geoff Snowman - Intro to .Net for CFers Nate Nelson - Beyond basic SQL for CF * Tuesday 6/28 10am - 5pm Charlie Arehart - CFML leveraging .Net strengths Sandra Clark - Advanced Cascading Stylesheets Joe Rinehart - "Forms and Beans" applying simple OO principles to standard CF forms methodology Jeff Peters - FLiP and Fusebox walkthrough Classes are at the CFUNITED Hotel. Classes cost $349 each and includes breakfast, lunch, materials, and coffee/tea. There is a limit of 30 people per class. Your conference registration does not cover these classes. Note: Unless you can clone yourself, you can only register to attend one class per day! The CFUNITED hotel discount code has been extened to Sunday 6/26 and Monday 6/27/05. The MMUG Manager and Team Macromedia conference will be on Tuesday 6/28/05 for more details and registration see: http://www.cfconf.org/mmug_managers_2005/ 4. "Frameworks: Mach II or Fusebox 4.1?" interview with Sean Corfield ********************************************************************* Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Sean Corfield about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Frameworks: Mach II or Fusebox 4.1?". So why should a developer come to your session Sean ? Sean Corfield: With all the hype and confusion surrounding application frameworks, a lot of developers just don't know which way to go and often don't have the time to fully evaluate the different frameworks themselves. Sometimes they just pick one and "make do", even if it isn't particularly suitable for their work. My session is a fast track to understanding enough about the two most popular frameworks so that developers can make an informed choice about which of these two is most appropriate for them. MS: So what exactly is a framework and why would a developer want to use one? SC: An application framework is pre-built code that you can use as the basis for building your own applications. Frameworks provide a common structure for your applications and implement a lot of the low-level 'plumbing' that all applications have. This lets developers focus on the unique business and presentation aspects of their application instead of having to waste time implementing the same old infrastructure over and over again. That common structure also makes maintenance easier because applications have a similar structure - a developer who is familiar with a given framework can dive into any application built with that framework and know how things will be structured right away. MS: Is there any downside to using a framework? SC: A framework imposes a particular architecture and way of working on developers. Some developers don't like to be constrained in that manner but I think it's good discipline. MS: So what do you like about Fusebox 4.1? SC: Fusebox overall provides a lot of flexibility, allowing developers to write in a style that they feel comfortable with. Fusebox 4.1 provides support for directly manipulating objects - ColdFusion Components, Java objects, COM objects and Web Services - so it is completely realistic to write Fusebox applications that have a fully object-oriented business model behind them. MS: And dislike? SC: Well, it's still possible to write spaghetti code so developers need to use common sense to get the best out of Fusebox. On the other hand, no framework is a silver bullet! MS: How about Mach-II, what is it good for? SC: Like Fusebox, Mach II also helps separate presentation logic from business logic but by providing a dynamic event handling mechanism, Mach II makes it easier to write certain types of very complex applications - ones that involve a lot of internal state transitions. MS: And what about drawbacks to Mach-II? SC: Unlike Fusebox, Mach II requires that you use CFCs and have a good, solid grasp of object-oriented techniques. Both frameworks have pros and cons - which is why folks need to come to my talk! MS: Will you show actual code in your session or is it all talk? SC: Yes, I have a sample application that is built in four different styles with Fusebox and two different styles with Mach II that I use to illustrate points in my talk. It's actually a real world application that's in daily use, a task management application. I'll make the source code available after the conference. MS: That is great! 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 $549 until 4/30/05 then $649. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Frameworks: Mach II or Fusebox 4.1? ************************* Application frameworks are an important tool in a developer's arsenal. Fusebox is the most popular ColdFusion application framework with Mach II rising quickly in second place. Find out what these frameworks can do for you and discover which one might be best for you. A single example application will be presented, implemented with both frameworks, as an illustration of their similarities and their differences. Speaker Bio: Sean has worked in IT for over twenty years. He started out writing database systems (in assembler) and compilers (in various languages, including COBOL!) before moving in mobile telecoms and finally to the web about eight years ago. Along the way, he worked on the ISO and ANSI C++ Standards committees for eight years but then turned to Java (in '97) and gave up C++, although he still maintains one of the textbook reference websites: C++ - Beyond the ARM. Sean is a staunch advocate of software standards and best practice, having written C++ coding guidelines for several companies during the 90's and more recently maintaining the Macromedia ColdFusion MX Coding Guidelines and Mach II Development Guide which are also published for the ColdFusion community. He has also given several seminar talks, both in- house and publicly, on these subjects. Sean has championed and contributed to Mach II and is also a member of Team Fusebox. 4. "Integrating CFML and ASP.NET Server Controls" interview with Charlie Arehart ******************************************************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Charlie Arehart about his CFUNITED- 05 talk "Integrating CFML and ASP.NET Server Controls". So why should a developer come to your session Charlie? Charlie Arehart: Whether you're being forced to move to .NET, or you are just curious, it's now possible to integrate your CFML with ASP.NET in ways that you couldn't even with CFML and JSPs. Putting it another way, if your organization is moving to .NET, you don't need to rewrite your CFML apps! More important, you can do things with your CFML-based code when running on .NET that you couldn't ever do with Java-based CFMX, as I hinted at in the description. MS: How is that possible? CA: BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework enables you to simply run the CFML on .NET. The code remains CFML--we've just enabled the .NET framework to know how to run CFML (like Macromedia rebuilt CFMX on top of J2EE). No CF or BlueDragon server/service is required. MS: But you do need a license for deploying on each server, right? CA: Yes, that's right. BlueDragon.NET (a shortcut we use to refer to it) is a licensed product from New Atlanta. You can install it free for trial purposes and like ColdFusion it reverts to a single IP developer edition after 30 days. If you want to use it for production purposes, you would buy a license. Pricing starts at just $2499 per CPU, with volume discounts and other details posted on our web site. MS: So isn't .Net related to ASP? CA: I know that for many years CF folks have regarded ASP as the evil "other web app server". ASP.NET, and in particular the .NET framework, are very different. Indeed, the .NET Framework can be considered Microsoft's answer to J2EE. Where ColdFusion leverages J2EE only, BlueDragon can leverage either J2EE or .NET. Not only is that something Macromedia has not done (and as far as we know will not do), but it also makes CFML the only web app language that runs on both J2EE and ..NET. MS: So what kind of things can you do on CFML/.Net that you can't do on CFML/J2EE? CA: Oh my goodness, the possibilities are many. This is really a two-fold question. First, what can .NET do that J2EE cannot do, and second what can one do with CFML and ASP.NET integration that cannot be done with CFML and JSP/servlet integration on ColdFusion MX. Of course, the first question would require much more space than we have, but suffice it to say that Microsoft has put a lot of work into enhancing the .NET framework over J2EE from several perspectives, including architecture, performance, productivity, and more. My colleague Vince Bonfanti will be addressing the first two of those aspects. MS: So what will you cover? CA: My talk will focus more on the second part: what one can do with CFML and ASP.NET integration. To your question, there indeed are things you can do that CFMX/J2EE does not enable, including calling CFCs from ASP.NET and even embedding CFML directly into an ASP.NET page. MS: Are there any cool controls in .NET? CA: Yes, getting back to what .NET adds over J2EE, more powerful still are the many cool controls for presenting data. .NET adds datagrids, calendars, ad rotators, datalists, and more, with still more coming in .NET 2.0 now in beta (which we support already). These all require little to no coding, even to bind them to be populated from a CFQUERY, for instance, whether retrieved from a CFC, a shared session variable, an included CFML page, or by just dropping the CFQUERY directly into the ASP.NET page. Add to that the ability of these controls to dynamically change their rendered output for different languages (globalization) or for mobile devices, to name just a few possibilities, and one can see that there may be a case for creating powerful new interfaces in ASP.NET while leveraging the backend work one has done in CFML, via any of the approaches mentioned previously. MS: How does that compare to using Flash controls with CFML? If you're asking how the .NET controls compare with Flash controls, well, that's a loaded question. .NET's controls create HTML (or DHTML for modern browsers), and they can be styled and enhanced in many ways, but they're not Flash. Still, not everyone cares for Flash. Further, Flash controls don't have any inherent ability to adjust the output for different devices. A .NET calendar, for instance, presents an entirely different interface on a phone than on a browser. Also, .NET calendars can also change the month and day names to the language and character set of the browser user. I'm not aware that the Flash controls in CFMX 7 can change dynamically this way. MS: While we're talking Flash, can BlueDragon integrate with Flash and create Flash controls? There are a couple of levels of integration possible with Flash. First, keep in mind that CFCs in BlueDragon (as in CF) can be called as web services and tools like Flash Remoting, Flex, and third party alternatives such as FlashOrb, OpenAMF, and Laszlo Presentation Server all can integrate with web services. These tools can also call upon a simple CFML web page to produce data. Further, you can even embed these tools within a BlueDragon webapp in either the J2EE or .NET editions, subject to the availability of each product for each platform. But you don't need to embed them to use them with BlueDragon. For instance, even though Laszlo doesn't yet have a .NET edition, you could certainly implement their J2EE edition on any J2EE server you may have on your server alongside .NET (they bundle it with Tomcat, if you have no J2EE server), and then your CFML pages can generate flash controls using the same kind of XML-based server-side SWF generator as Flex, which underlies CFMX 7. Best of all, Laszlo is free and open source. Look for us to make that integration even easier in the future. MS: That is exciting! See you at CFUNITED. --- Integrating CFML and ASP.NET Server Controls ************************* ASP.NET developers have access to all sorts of nifty controls to help build datagrids, calendars, and more. In ASP.NET 2.0, the list grows even larger. With BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework, CFML developers can also leverage those Controls, and a lot more. Rather than a 50-line template to create a grid with next/previous logic, you can do it in one line of ASP.NET code. And you can pass a CFQUERY result to that, either by invoking a CFC from the ASP.NET page, dropping a CFQUERY inline onto the ASP.NET page, and referring to the query as a session Variable set in CFML, and more. In this talk, all these and other compelling possibilities will be demonstrated. A free copy of BlueDragon/.NET will be available for all to try it on. Speaker Bio: Charlie Arehart is CTO of New Atlanta Communications. A veteran CFML developer since 1997, Charlie is a regular contributor to the ColdFusion Developer's Journal (CFDJ) in both the "journeyman" and "blueprints" columns, and served until 2003 as tech editor. He's been a MM certified Advanced CF Developer and instructor since CF 4 and was co-author of the CFMX Bible. With 20 years in enterprise IT, he is frequently invited to speak to developer conferences and user groups worldwide. 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/ -- Michael Smith, TeraTech Inc - Tools for Programmers(tm) TeraTech voted Best Consulting Service by CFDJ readers! CF/ASP Web, VB, Math, Access programming tools and consulting 405 E Gude Dr Ste 207, Rockville MD 20850 USA Please check out http://www.teratech.com/ - email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], or call us for more information; in the USA at 1-800-447-9120, +1-301-424-3903 International, Fax 301-762-8185 Thanks! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:202525 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
