In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news:
1. CFUNITED News - WARNING: hotel block price ends 6/8/05 (2 days early)
- win a Gigabyte memory stick class competition by 6/10/05
- regular price $649 ends 6/10/05,
2. ColdFusion Live! Every Thursday 12:30pm
3. How to convince your boss to send you to CFUNITED
4. "Working with Custom Tags" interview with Raymond Camden
5. "Advanced SQL" interview with Selene Bainum
Happy coding
- Michael Smith,
TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/
"Creating excellent custom software since 1989"
Due to TeraTech's growth we are seeking developers and sales people
http://www.teratech.com/index.cfm?go=About.Jobs
"Just wanted to thank you for putting on such a fantastic conference this
past
[year]. Not only did I learn much, I was inspired to consider even other
avenues then I'm presenting working on. The CSS and accessibility
information was such an eye opener! I was especially inspired by the Flash
sessions and want to look into this technology more." - Troy Murray
1. CFUNITED News
****************
* The special price ($153) at the DoubleTree is so popular that it is ending
6/8/05 (two days earlier than we thought last week)
To get the special rate use code CFUNITED, valid until 6/8/05 then it is
$259
The Doubletree is a mile from the CFUNITED conference hotel and is next to
the
metro - letting you take the metro to and from the conference and to/from
DC
nightlife.
* Everyone who registers for a pre-conference class before this Friday 6/10/05
will be entered
in a drawing for a one gigabyte memory stick. If you have already registered
you
are already entered! If you go to two classes you get two chances to win the
stick!
More class info and registration at http://www.cfunited.com/classes.cfm
Classes are filling up fast, so register today to guarantee your place and
chance
to win!
* Upcoming classes:
CU201 - Hal Helms - Designing and Developing OO Applications with CFCs Jun 27
2005
CU202 - Simon Horwith - Roll Your Own API - Max Code ReUse CFCs and Custom Tags
Jun 27 2005
CU203 - Geoff Snowman - Intro to .NET for CFers Jun 27 2005
CU204 - Nate Nelson - Beyond Basic SQL for CF Jun 27 2005
CU205 - Charlie Arehart - CFML Leveraging .NET Strengths Jun 28 2005
CU206 - Sandra Clark - Advanced Cascading Stylesheets Jun 28 2005
CU208 - Jeff Peters - FLiP and Fusebox walkthrough Jun 28 2005
For more info http://www.teratech.com/training/
Note CU20* classes are at the CFUNITED hotel and not at TeraTech training
center.
* Macromedia Press special for CFUNITED attendees - use this coupon:
EE-67TH-EEE to receive an exclusive 35% discount off the list price of any
Peachpit book or training DVD at www.peachpit.com in addition to free
shipping within the domestic united states. Offer expires 12/31/2006.
* Purchase CFMX Exam Buster by June 20th, 2005, get $100 off the CFUNITED
admission price.
Be sure to ask for the discount code when making your purchase.
http://centrasoft.com/
* Want to meet other attendees on Tuesday evening? Come to the attendee dinner
just before MiniMAX at Dave and Busters which is 4 blocks from the CFUNITED
hotel. See http://www.cfunited.com/attendee_dinner.cfm
This event is being organized by Jason Egan of CFDynamics, please
email him if you want to come [EMAIL PROTECTED]
* Chat with other attendees on the CFUNITED Fusetalk forum. Find room shares,
rides
and more
http://www.cfunited.com/fusetalk/forum/join.cfm
* Only 3 weeks until CFUNITED-05. Regular price $649 expires this Friday 6/10/05
* We have a limited number of partial scolarships to CFUNITED for
unemployed programmers and students
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your situation if you want to apply
with "CFUNITED scholarship" in the title.
* New Open Source BOF with John Paul Ashenfelter, David Epler and Steve Rittler
* New Bloggers BOF with Steve Erat
* New CF Survivor game at the Community Pit - can you survive the code
challenges
and be the last one on the "island"?
* User group manager conference is Tuesday June 28th. Learn how to run
your group better and get great speakers and more members. Just $29
http://www.cfconf.org/mmug_managers_2005/
* 667 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05. Only the first 750
attendees get
a premium backpack, so register today!
https://secure.teratech.com/cfunited/images/backpack-flyer2.pdf
* See CFUNITED presenters at previous ColdFusion Live! meetings at
http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/?action=pastlist
* MiniMAX 2! Join Adam Bell, Simon Horwith and four additional speakers for
the prelude to the CFUnited conference on Tuesday Night, June 28th at 7PM ET
http://www.minimaxconference.com/ It is FREE! (but must register online)
* The results of our attendee survey are in. The following six most popular
sessions will repeat:
Mike Nimer - CF7 Flash Forms & XML Forms
Hal Helms Domain Model
Glenda Vigoreaux - Leveraging Web Service with ColdFusion
Sean Corfield Frameworks
Sandy Clark CSS and Tables
Selene Bainum Advanced SQL
2. ColdFusion Live! Every Thursday 12:30pm
********************************************
ColdFusion Live! A CFUNITED preview every Thursday
Two 15 minute "preview" talks from CFUNITED speakers. They
will provide an brief introduction to their topic during these
sessions. Plus you can ask questions via Breeze chat.
This week's speakers:
6/9 Charlie Arehart - Integrating CFML and ASP.NET Server Controls
Lou Honick - How to Build, Refresh or Rebuild Your Datacenter on Time
and
Under Budget
12:30 - 1:00 US/Eastern Time
Meeting: http://macromedia.breezecentra l.com/cfliveno8/ (Breeze v.5)
RSVP: http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/4718195/
Future speakers are:
6/16 Jeffry Houser - Creating Sound for Flash Movies
David Epler - LAMBDA Boxes: ColdFusion Apps on the Cheap
3. How to convince your boss to send you to CFUNITED
****************************************************
I have received some feedback from some people having
difficulty convincing their boss to send them to CFUNITED
Here are ten reasons for going that you can tell them:
1. Three full days of training usually costs $1200, CFUNITED is
only $649 - about a half of the cost!
2. To buy books on the 18 talks you can attend at CFUNITED
could cost $50 each or $900. Again CFUNITED is cheaper
and you get both a printed handbook and a CD-ROM of the
talks, plus you can ask the authors questions too!
3. You will learn so much at CFUNITED that when you come back
you will be much more efficient at programming . If you are even
5% more efficient then CFUNITED will pay for itself ten
times over!
4. You can take any existing programming problems you have
to the CF Doctor and CFDJ Panel at CFUNITED for a quick
answer and save yourself time when you get back to the office.
5. Half the battle in programming can be knowing that a
solution exists at all. By seeing and hearing about a wide
range of techniques you will be prepared for future problems
and be able to solve them in less time!
6. The people you meet at CFUNITED can help you by bouncing ideas
with you and for you to compare how your organization does
programming vs other organizations.
7. You can pick the brains of the 50 nationally know speakers and
ColdFusion authors who are speaking at the conference.
8. You can get live in person demos of your favorite ColdFusion add on
vendor's software and ask their staff questions.
9. You can hear about the latest news on yet to be released Macromedia
products that might affect your business in 2005.
10. You can save $100 by registering before 6/10/05 when the late
registration price of $749 goes into effect.
4. "Working with Custom Tags" interview with Raymond Camden
***********************************************************
Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Raymond Camden about his CFUNITED-
05 talk "Working with Custom Tags". So why should a developer come to your
session Raymond?
Raymond Camden: If you are a beginner in the world of ColdFusion, you have
already discovered how easy CFML is to work with. After mastering the basic
syntax, one of main ways you can help improve your code is to work on
reusability. Custom tags are one of the many ways you can package and reuse code
in ColdFusion. This session is targetted to the BEGINNER developer who has not
yet worked with custom tags.
MS: Why does reusability improve code?
RC: Reusability simply means to reuse what you have done before. It saves time:
This is a bit obvious, but if you spend a week building an interface to an
ecommerce system and can use it again - you have just saved a week of time. It
also makes your code stronger. If that ecommerce code has a bug in it and 10
applications use it - you can fix it for all 10 applications by simply fixing it
in one place.
MS: That is cool! But doesn't it take a lot longer to write the code to be
reuseable in the first place?
RC: I wouldn't say a lot longer. It certainly does take more time to write
encapsulated code, however that time is more than made up later on when you can
reuse the code you wrote. I also find that the extra time allows me to take a
closer look at what I'm doing. Say I'm writing a custom tag to handle tax. Not
only am I going to take the time to make it reusuable, I'm going to make sure my
math/logic/etc is correct. Typically the code you should be reusing is the code
that is somewhat important, so the extra time is definitely a good thing.
MS: So are there many new tags you have to learn to write custom tags?
RC: Technically the answer is no. Custom tags are built with simple CFML. There
are a few functions that relate to more advanced uses of custom tags. Again
though - the simple answer is that you don't have to use any special tags to
work with custom tags.
MS: So a new developer can create a custom tag immediately, no learning curve?
What do you have to do?
*RC: I'm not sure I'd say a "new" developer per se - but someone who has at
least basic CFML experience. So, sure, a new developer can use these tags, but
they should at least know a bit of CFML.
MS: What about more advanced developers - can you pass parameters back and forth
to a custom tag?
RC: Yes. A custom tag ends up being like any other built in tag. They can take
arguments, and they can pass results back. We will discuss the "API" for doing
this (trust me, it is simple) as well as some best practices.
MS: So that means you can totally extend the ColdFusion tag language with your
own tags and they will look the same as the build in tags to other programmers?
RC: That's right
MS: Are there any difference between custom tags and built in tags then?
*RC:* Well, some of the tags that are 'built-in' are actually written in CFML,
and you can mimic that functionality, but it isn't supported so I don't
recommend it. As for differences - not really. Custom tags allow for required
and optional arguments - just as built-in tags do.
MS: Can you overwrite built in tags with your own tag definitions - if for
example you don't like how a certain tag works?
RC: Not by any normal means. As we all know, there are things you can do with CF
that aren't exactly by the book.
MS: Hmm, interesting. I will look forward to your talk
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 $649 until 6/10/05 then $749. For more information on CFUNITED see
http://www.cfunited.com/
---
Working with Custom Tags
*************************
Custom tags are a powerful technique used for abstraction and code
reuse. This talk will cover the ins and outs of custom tags with both
simple and advanced examples.
Speaker Bio:
Raymond Camden is a senior software engineer for Mindseye, Inc. A long
time ColdFusion user, Raymond is a co-author of the "Mastering
ColdFusion" series published by Sybex Inc, as well as the lead author
for the ColdFusion MX Developer's Handbook. He also presents at numerous
conferences and contributes to online webzines. He is a contributor and
technical editor of the ColdFusion Developer's Journal. He and Rob
Brooks-Bilson created and run the Common Function Library Project
(www.cflib.org), an open source repository of ColdFusion UDFs. Raymond
has helped form three ColdFusion User Groups and is the manager of the
Acadiana MMUG.
5. "Advanced SQL" interview with Selene Bainum
**********************************************
Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Selene Bainum about her CFUNITED-05
talk "Advanced SQL". So why should a developer come to your session Selene ?
Selene Bainum: 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. This session
will teach you 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: Is T-SQL hard to learn?
SB: Not really. T-SQL is just a superset of SQL, so if you are familiar with
writing standard queries (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, etc...) you are well on your
way. T-SQL does have a lot of functions, but since they are based on basic
functions, many of them are very similar to ColdFusion functions. There is also
very good help in Microsoft's SQL Query Analyzer tool. I use the T-SQL Reference
all the time. Other items, such as cursors, are more difficult to learn, but
should not be beyond a mid-level developer's grasp.
MS: Are there any other advantages to T-SQL over SQL?
SB: The main advantage of using T-SQL over standard, cross-database compatible
SQL is that you can utilize all the functions and processes it contains, thus
pushing more of your processing to your database. You can also create stored
procedures, functions and views that run faster than standard SQL in a CFQUERY
tag because they are precompiled. You can also restrict viewing and editing of
these objects so that not everyone on your development team can see them. You
can allow them to use them, but not see their content, which helps hide and
secure your business logic.
MS: Are there any disadvantages to using T-SQL?
SB: The main disadvantage of using T-SQL, as with any proprietary database
language - is that the code will not port to another database without a lot of
rewrites. If your company migrates from SQL Server to Oracle, for instance, any
query that does not use standard SQL will have to be rewritten.
MS: Can you show us a simple example of some T-SQL code and briefly explain what
it does?
SB: Often in ColdFusion you may not be able to manipulate query data when it is
displayed, which is especially true if you are using ColdFusion components and
your data is being accessed by another system. In these instances it is very
useful to have SQL format the data for you. One of the most useful statements
in a query is CASE. Like in most languages, CASE is used to perform conditional
logic. Consider the following query:
SELECT ProductID, ProductName, ProductPrice, DisplayPrice = CASE WHEN
ProductPrice IS NULL THEN 'No Cost' ELSE '$' + CAST(CAST(ProductPrice AS
DECIMAL(5,2)) AS VARCHAR) END FROM Product ORDER BY ProductName
This query will return four columns: ProductID, ProductName, ProductPrice and
DisplayPrice. The first three columns will return data exactly as it is in the
database, but DisplayPrice will be formatted based on the value of ProductPrice.
When ProductPrice is null, a string literal of 'No Cost' will be returned.
Otherwise, the existing ProductPrice will be cast to a decimal format (it is
stored as FLOAT in the database) and then will be cast to a VARCHAR so that it
can be concatinated with the dollar sign.
MS: Wow that is pretty niffty logic inside a SQL statement - Does it run much
faster tahn doing the same logic in CF?
SB: The speed difference can depened on a lot of different factors, including
hardware. If you are running ColdFusion on a multi-processor server with a gig
of memory and have SQL Server on a P3 desktop, you won't notice much different.
The big speed benefit you get is when you perform complex processing within a
stored procedure, such as looping over recordsets as opposed to having one
CFQUERY tag for each loop iteration. One benefit of the code above is data
sorting. Because you are returning the formatted column from your database, you
can sort by it. If you do the data formatting in ColdFusion, you may not be
able to recreate the sort results.
MS: Hmm, I am going to have to check out your session 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 $649 until 6/10/05 then $749. For more information on CFUNITED see
http://www.cfunited.com/
---
Advanced SQL
*************************
Every tool was designed for a specific purpose and databases are no
different. Databases provide vastly superior data handling capabilities
than ColdFusion, yet developers often can���t make use of
these
capabilities because their knowledge primarily lies in CFML. This talk
will show where performing data handling in a database will provide
enormous benefits over performing the same tasks in ColdFusion.
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 regular price of $649 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 6/28/05
* 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!
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