Cool! A sounding board for all those little pet-peeves. comments inline...
-----Original Message----- From: Shirley Cooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 5:47 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cold Fusion Research I am currently conducting training in Cold Fusion and wanted to do some research to help my student? 1) If you are a hiring manager, what do you look for when filling a cold fusion position? We're a small shop here so I'm typically looking for a "hired gun" rather than a junior developer. However, important qualities are: - thinks like a programmer, - can works through a problem without running to the list or a coworker for help--but who knows when to do so, - wants to learn more and get better Im sure there are most, but I can't think of them right now. Oh yes, and I think that certification would be a good thing. It's not required. But they'll have to show competency without it. 2) What do you need to know before trying to learn Cold Fusion? HTML and SQL. You can learn SQL as you learn CF, but there aren't many dynamic Web sites out there that don't connect to a database. JavaScript and DHTML are moderately useful, but certainly not required. XML will start making this kind of list in the next year or so. 3) What do you find as the best way to learn Cold Fusion? Write code and get a good book (Forta's Web Application Construction Kit was my bible that first year). I've always found it difficult to learn a programming language if you don't have a program to write so find a project and learn as you write it. 4) What is most important when learning Cold Fusion? Loaded question... One of the simplest and most common things to do is go to a database, get a list of something, choose one of those somethings and display a detail, make changes to that something and update the database. As web programmers, most of what we do derives from this basic task. If you can't do this without looking in the book or asking help, then you need more experience. 5) How important is it to know server information if you are only going to be using Cold Fusion Studio? Im not sure that I understand the question--what do you mean, "server information"? If you are going to be building something that reads or writes files on the server, you certainly have to know a little bit about the server. CGI variables tell you things about the environment, including the server, and it helps to know what they mean. Datasource connections are set up on the application server so you have to know those. And you can't develop an application without knowing whether and how you can use application variables. I think Im beginning to understand the question--do you mean, "Does one have to know how to administer CF in order to program in it?" The answer is no. But it certainly helps to know what a datasource is, what the different debugging options are, and how persistent variables are/can be set up. Many of the questions on the CFUG list are answered by knowing how the server configuration places limitations on what you can/can't do. 6) How long did it take for you to really know Cold Fusion? For me, I think it was about one year... a light bulb suddenly came on and I closed my Forta book forever. Before that, there was a lot of sifting through the language reference and the online help to do things that today are second nature. As with any language you'll never completely wean yourself from the documentation. I'd probably have to look up how to use a cfhttp or cfregistry tag since I rarely use them. It also depends on how much you put into it. After that first year, I started browsing the forums, reading community discussions, reading articles on the Allaire site, etc. You get better quicker if you do that. 7) Any other relating information would be much appreciated!! The CF documentation is actually pretty decent. Strong recommendation to read the docs. The language reference is good in a pinch, but the other docs give you insight into how things fit together. Finally, get a methodology. Ill stop short of recommending one (Fusebox--cough!) but it definitely makes your world 10 times easier if you can have a GOOD standard way of doing something. Jeremy ---------------------------------------------------- Jeremy Ridout Internet Services Director American College of Emergency Physicians www.ACEP.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This email server is running an evaluation copy of the MailShield anti- spam software. Please contact your email administrator if you have any questions about this message. MailShield product info: www.mailshield.com ----------------------------------------------- To post, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe / unsubscribe: http://www.dfwcfug.org
