In my opinion this is were official, detailed language specs come in. I think that the printed docs are pretty good as they are - but there needs to be a complete reference someplace for us gear heads to look.
I'm not looking for "clear to the masses" but it has to be written down some place publicly available. The documentation we get with CF does a great job of teaching new programmers and reminding us veterans, but we lack a spec to settle implementation and expectation issues like this. An HTML book, for example, doesn't go into the minor details - but those details are readily available nonetheless for those that want them. Jim Davis > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Roland Collins > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 3:26 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [CFCDev] More CFMX Excellence with Component Inheritance > > > Yes, that probably adds to the confusion... To be fair, explaining > >cfinclude that way is at least readily understandable by the vast > >majority of non-programmers (and remember that part of this whole > >discussion centers on the success of CF in empowering non-programmers). > > But that shouldn't preclude MM from explaining it to the rest of us > programmers. Even if they're not at the top of the document, the details > _need_ to be there. > > > How complicated do you want the documentation to be? > > Being complete and thorough doesn't necessarily mean being complicated. A > good technical writer can achieve completeness without bewildering the > masses. It could be as simple as having an "Advanced Usage Techniques" > section in the cfinclude documentation. > > You also have to remember that while CF is designed to empower the > non-programmers, the audience has expanded over time to include quite a > large expert programmer base. We need to be empowered as well! > > Roland Collins > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Sean A Corfield > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 3:14 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [CFCDev] More CFMX Excellence with Component Inheritance > > On Jan 30, 2004, at 12:35 AM, Roland Collins wrote: > > "The cfinclude tag adds the contents of a ColdFusion page to another > > ColdFusion page, as if the code on the included page were part of the > > page > > that uses the cfinclude tag. ... > > Yes, that probably adds to the confusion... To be fair, explaining > cfinclude that way is at least readily understandable by the vast > majority of non-programmers (and remember that part of this whole > discussion centers on the success of CF in empowering non-programmers). > > It would be somewhat harder to explain exactly how cfinclude really > worked (that it treats the included file as a separately executed page > but somehow weaves together certain scopes in the include file with > certain scopes in the 'calling' file). > > Bear in mind also that you can 'include' a file in multiple ways: > > <cfinclude template="foo.cfm"> > <cfmodule template="foo.cfm"> > <cf_foo> > > These all behave slightly differently yet foo.cfm is unchanged. Then > again, consider this subtly different piece of code: > > <cfinclude template="foo.cfm" /> > <cfmodule template="foo.cfm" /> > <cf_foo /> > > In this case, foo.cfm is executed twice for cfmodule and the custom tag > call - but only once for cfinclude. > > How complicated do you want the documentation to be? > > And another thing to remember is that <cfinclude> determines the > template to include at run-time, not compile-time (which is part of the > reason that included files must be syntactically valid in their own > right): > > <cfinclude template="#somePath#/foo.cfm"> > > Regards, > Sean > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email > to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' > in the message of the email. > > CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported > by Mindtool, Corporation (www.mindtool.com). > > An archive of the CFCDev list is available at > www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email > to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' > in the message of the email. > > CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported > by Mindtool, Corporation (www.mindtool.com). > > An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail- > archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' in the message of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by Mindtool, Corporation (www.mindtool.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
