In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: 1. CFUNITED News - timely bird price ends 4/30 2. ColdFusion Live! Thursday 4/28/05 12:30pm 3. Winner of ticket to CFUNITED 4. "Design Patterns and CFML" interview with Simon Horwith 5. "Database Design Fundamentals" interview with Selene Bainum
Happy coding - Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/ "Creating excellent custom software since 1989" "Great place to network yourself and pick up new techinques and ideas. Also to meet ones peers, and see what the future holds for all those involved with ColdFusion" - Daniel Gregorio (Attendees CFUN-04) 1. CFUNITED News **************** * Only 9 weeks until CFUNITED-05. Timely bird price $549 expires in 3 days on 4/30/05 * Verify that you are registered. If you didn't get a receipt email saying that you are registered for CFUNITED then you may not be registered. If you are not sure email [EMAIL PROTECTED] * 457 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05! That is a lot more than this time last year for CFUN-04! * Pre-conference classes are filling up fast. Check the schedule, descriptions and registration at http://www.cfunited.com/classes.cfm * The Mid-Atlantic Free Code Camp is on Sat May 7th. Covers Web Development, Smart Clients, Database, Process, Design, and Security. I will be speaking as will CFUNITED speakers Sandra Clark and Geoff Snowman. http://blogs.msdn.com/gduthie/articles/383561.aspx * Upcoming ColdFusion and Fusebox classes CF101S - ColdFusion Seminar May 3 2005 CF102 - Intro to ColdFusion May 10 2005 CF201 - Intermediate ColdFusion May 17 2005 FB101 - Intro to Fusebox May 24 2005 FB201 - Intermediate Fusebox Jun 7 2005 For more info http://www.teratech.com/training/ * Report and view bugs in CFMX 7 at the CF bug hunt http://www.cfbughunt.org/ 2. ColdFusion Live! Thursday 4/28/05 12:30pm ******************************************** Just a quick automated reminder that The Online Coldfusion Meetup Group has an event tomorrow. You didn't RSVP but if you can make it, here are the details: See who's coming and RSVP (it's not too late!): http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/4649143/ What: ColdFusion Live! A CFUNITED show with Hal Helms and Jeff Peters Please join us for this week's "speed talks" with Hal Helms and Jeff Peters. This is part of a weekly series of lunchtime events where presenters at the upcoming CFUNITED ColdFusion conference will preview their talks here at the Online ColdFusion Meetup Group in cooperation with the Maryland ColdFusion User Group. This event will be 12:30 - 1:00 PM EDT on Thursday April 28th, that's tomorrow! There will be 2 short presentations, about 15 minutes each. For those that missed Jeff last week, sorry about that. Jeff is returning this week to discuss FLiP. Part 1) Hal Helms will discuss Developing An API Part 2) Jeff Peters will discuss Fusebox Lifecycle Process To join the meeting, enter as a guest using a name or a nickname at this URL: http://mmsupport.breezecentral.com/r40491242/ Please RSVP for the meeting at: http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/4649143/ 3. Win a ticket to CFUNITED *************************** The competition for a free ticket (a $549 value) ends Friday 4/22/05. http://www.cfunited.com/survey.cfm The winner of our competition is Jeff Coughlin based on answering the questions correctly together with the best answer to the question "Why should people come to CFUNITED-05?" Only 3 people who had all the answers correct. Jeff said: "CF developers are a hot commodity. The demand for fast, reliable web applications is on the rise. Now is the time to be a ColdFusion developer if you want to be on top of the game. CFUNITED is the place to be to see the latest feature sets of ColdFusion and what it can do for you and your company. Be the first to witness it all." - Jeff Coughlin To see the other responses go to: http://www.cfunited.com/contest_results.cfm 4. "Design Patterns and CFML" interview with Simon Horwith ********************************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Simon Horwith about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Design Patterns and CFML". So why should a developer come to your session Simon? Simon Horwith: Design patterns are proven solutions to common problems in software development. Many of the features in Object Oriented Programming allow developers to take full advantage of code-reuse as well as build software that is extremely flexible in terms of extensibility and maintainability. Unfortunately, the vast majority of ColdFusion Developers don't take advantage of the features in either one. Learning about design patterns and how to use OOP features in your designs allows developers to take their software and their development skills to a whole new level. MS: What sort of improvements have you seen? SH: Applications built using the techniques I discuss in this session are loosly coupled. By that I mean that code in one place is not dependent on code in another. This allows you to build applications that are very easy to maintain and that tend not to "break" when changes are made to it's underlying components.The code is also easier to maintain because of a clean seperation between business logic and presentation code. There are more benefits, too. Many of the patterns I will talk about offer developers ways to drastically improve the speed (performance) of their applications. Some of them allow you to implement site-wide (or application-wide) changes much more quickly than would otherrwise be possible. There are so many improvements made to applications that take advantage of design patterns and Object Oriented features in CFML. MS: So what exactly is a design pattern? SH: A design pattern is a blueprint for the solution to a problem. When given a list of requirements for how an application needs to work, design patterns help you to determine how to represent the parts of that application, and how those parts will interact with each other. A book of design patterns is kind of like a recipe book for software development. In my session I'll not only talk about design patterns but also about the best ways to implement them in code. I also plan to discuss some real world scenarios in which I've implemented a design pattern and/or an object oriented feature in order to achieve great results. MS: What are some of the patterns you will look at? SH: Well, everyone talks about Model View Controller ("MVC") so of course I'll discuss that. A few of the other patterns that I'll also discuss include facade, DTO, Business Delegate, Front Controller, Resource Pool, and many others. In addition, I will talk about best practices for taking advantage of Object Oriented features such as encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism and I'll dicuss what I like to refer to as the "API Approach to CFML Development". I will be sure to also discuss the role that CFML constructs (CFINCLUDES, Custom Tags, UDFs, and CFCs) play in these patterns and approaches to development, as well as how the new features in CFMX 7 fit-in to all of this. Anyone really interested in rolling up their sleeves and spending an entire day learning about design patterns and APIs might want to enroll to take the full-day session I'm teaching for CFUnited a couple of days prior to the first day of the conference, entitled "Roll Your Own API - Maximizing Code ReUse with CFCs and Custom Tags". MS: That sounds really useful - 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/ --- Design Patterns and CFML ************************* In this session you will be introduced to every aspect of design patterns from what they are to how they are implemented. Many popular design patterns will be examined and their ColdFusion implementation details and usefulness will be discussed. 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. 5. "Database Design Fundamentals" interview with Selene Bainum ************************************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Selene Bainum about her CFUNITED-05 talk "Database Design Fundamentals". So why should a developer come to your session Selene ? Selene Bainum: Databases are the foundations of many ColdFusion applications. Like anything you build, the completed product can be no stronger than the foundation on which it stands. However, many developers may not understand how or why to build a properly structured database. This session will explain how to build a database from the ground up, and explain why concepts like normalization, relationships and table keys are important. MS: What about designing the database tables and indices? Will you cover that? SB: Absolutely. The main focus of this class is to teach developers how to design their tables so that their application is stored in the most efficient way possible. Creating tables, keys and indices will be covered in-depth. MS: BTW what is normalization? SB: Normalization is technique to designed databases which removes repeated data from the tables. The ultimate goal is to create related tables that have no redundant data and can be easily modified and/or added to. MS: And how do relationships and keys fit into that? SB: Relationships allow data sets to be broken up into multiple tables, thus removing repeated data. There is typically a parent table and a child table Keys are created to formalize these relationships, allowing data integrity. Primary keys are the unique identifier of the parent table while a forgeign key is the parent's primary key value within the child table. MS: Sounds complex - what is an example of a key? SB: A primary key is a part of a row/element which is unique - it cannot be duplicated for any other row. This key could be one or more columns combined, but its value cannot change. Often keys are created dynamically, such as using a number automatically generated by the database and has no meaning to the rest of the row. This is typical because it can be quite difficult to isolate a part of your row that is unique and will not change. Even Social Security Numbers could change. MS: What can we do to make our applications run faster? SB: The correct structure and indice are important. As is the way you write your SQL statements and the use of parameters. . Most ColdFusion developers get to a point where their applications need to run more efficiently than they have before. The first thing anyone should try to improve is interactions with their database. By moving logic from ColdFusion to your database, such as SQL Server, you can greatly increase the efficiency and speed with which your applications run. My "Advanced SQL" session will cover some of the ins and outs of Transact-SQL, SQL Server's specific flavor or SQL, which will allow you to create complex queries and stored procedures that include concepts such as variables, conditional logic, loops and cursors. MS: Will you have any sample code or demos in your session? SB: My design fundamental session will contain some code samples. The SQL used to create tables and keys is presented as well as ColdFusion code that shows how to insert, delete and select data from related tables. 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 $449 until 2/25/05 then $549. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Database Design Fundamentals ************************* Databases are the foundation of almost all ColdFusion applications, yet few developers have formal database design experience. This session will teach the basics of creating a good database from the ground up and how to avoid common missteps. Speaker Bio: Selene Bainum is a Senior Web Developer with INPUT, the source for government market intelligence. Selene has 9 years of HTML and database experience and has been developing with ColdFusion since version 1.5 (1996). She uses her knowledge of web technologies to design and develop enterprise web applications from the ground up. Over the years, she has created numerous practical and creative applications to meet the needs of many different organizations. These applications include fully functional e-commerce web sites, dynamic content management systems, an automated software fulfillment system and a Board of Directors Extranet for a Fortune 500 company. Selene has been very active in the ColdFusion community by being a member of Team Macromedia, contributing articles to the ColdFusion Developer�s Journal and maintaining a ColdFusion tutorial site � WebTricks.com. She has also co-authored two ColdFusion books for Sybex: Mastering ColdFusion MX and the ColdFusion MX Developer�s Handbook. 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! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| 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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