Thanks Dave, I think you are right that I need to pick up on OO concepts. I have been picking at the "head first object-oriented analysis and design" book, but kind of get lost in the java language since I truly don't know it.
I will keep reading and learning, thanks for your awesome response, it answers a lot of questions! My problems with persistence is the cflocking thing that the documentation mentions. Im not sure when I would have to lock thinks. > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Watts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 8:38 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: RE: CFCs and Best Practices > > > Is there a best practice for using CFCs and CF? > > Yes, there are best practices for using CFCs, and most of them are largely > drawn from best practices in any other class-based OO programming > language, > such as Java. Your best bet for understanding these best practices is to > learn general OO programming concepts, which can then be applied pretty > easily to CF in many cases. > > > I read the documentation on CFCs and there are lots of ways > > to use them. > > > > You can use CFinvoke, CFScript you can make a mapping to your > > CFCs or you can keep them local to the CFM pages. You can > > use CFInvokeArgurments or just place arguments in CFInvoke. > > There's nothing wrong with any of these approaches, actually. There are > places where it may make more sense to use one than another, but the > differences are pretty minor. In general, it's pretty common to use > CFINVOKE > when using a CFC as a static class, and to use CFSET or CFSCRIPT along > with > CreateObject when using a CFC as a class template from which you want to > create instances. But the differences between one and the other are more a > matter of personal preference than "best practice". > > > Inheritance and persistence confuses me some.. when should > > you use them? > > Persistence doesn't really have anything to do with CFCs. You persist CFC > instances just like you'd persist any other variable in CF. If, for > example, > it makes sense to store something in the user's session, it doesn't matter > whether it's an object instance or an array or structure or whatever. > > Inheritance (and composition, and a bunch of other things) are part of OO, > and you should use them when it makes sense to use them. That's pretty > much > a non-answer, but an actual answer would require a lot more explanation, > and > you're going to have to learn OO programming anyway. But, for a quick > example, let's say you have people in general that you want to represent > in > your program, and they all share common characteristics. So, you might > write > a Person CFC that you will use to create Person objects. You might also > have > different types of people, who have their own characteristics in addition > to > those common characteristics, say Customers and Employees. It would make > sense in this case to have Customer and Employee CFCs that extend Person, > to > add those type-specific characteristics. That's inheritance. A customer > "is > a" person; inheritance is an "is a" relationship. The other common > relationship, composition, is a "has a" relationship. For example, people > might have addresses, or roles, or whatever, that might be represented by > their own CFCs. > > > I found the book 'Discovering CFCs: ColdFusion MX Components' > > but it got rough reviews on amazon.com. > > I think it's actually a pretty good book, it was just written at a very > bad > time. When CFMX first came out, CFCs had lots of problems and limitations, > and this book spends a significant amount of time covering workarounds for > those limitations. Since then, newer versions of CF have removed many of > those limitations, making the workarounds unnecessary. > > Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software > http://www.figleaf.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Macromedia ColdFusion MX7 Upgrade to MX7 & experience time-saving features, more productivity. http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion?sdid=RVJW Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:272957 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
