I'm going to get picky here. While the use of 'code outside functions as a constructor' is a hack, the unnamed scope is NOT a hack (imho). The so-called unnamed/private scope (although it's not really private) does work as intended I think, not counting the fact that Variables.* is broken. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but we seem to be talking about two features, and while one is unintended (constructor), the other (non This scope variables) is intended and can be used w/o fear of it changing (again, at least as far as I know).
Not being picky at all. I should have clarified -- I was talking specifically about the constructor concept, not the unnamed scope. Sorry for the confusion. And I do concur that the unnamed scope is intentional and the constructor workaround is not.
I do agree with you, my point was that this seems to be a mechanism used by most, but not all, CFC authors. MACR has a history of looking at what people do and not mucking with that in future releases. I'd be willing to bet that MX2, or MX200X, or whatever, will have a 'formal' constructor concept, but will still support the 'code outside functions constructor' hack.
Maybe, maybe not. I agree that they are traditionally good about taking developers' practices into account, but their track record (and it's not a knock, just a fact) is not 100% either. So while I'm a betting man also, I don't know if I'd bet a mission-critical application on a hunch and a hope. Personally, I have the impression that if the currently "accepted" practice of using the Camden scope (hey, it's catchy!) for constructors was the best solution, it might have made it into a release of ColdFusion MX, as I think MM knows that this is a highly desired feature. But I don't think it is, and we need to remember that the under-the-hood constructor functionality needs to work on JRun, BEA, and WebSphere (officially, at least) platforms across many JVM versions. Maybe that's an issue, maybe it's not, as I'm not a Java expert, but I suspect it's not a cut-and-dry solution either.
Anyway, sorry to be so picky.
No worries. I personally believe that the great discussions are in the details a lot of the time, and I'm a detail-oriented person, so this is all fine by me. If I mis-speak (i.e., the unnamed scope comment), I hope to be corrected so I don't get the wrong idea engrained in my mind.
Regards, Dave.
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