In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: * CFUNITED hotel is full - Over flow hotel info * Pre-conference Classes * CFUNITED Sneak Peek 3/1/06 - win a copy of CFMX 7! * CFLive - Simon Horwith Thursdays 12:30pm via breeze * Interview with Kurtis D Leatham - Arrays, Structures, Multidimensional Arrays, Arrays of Structures, etc...
CFUNITED is the premier ColdFusion Conference near Washington DC 6/28-7/1/06 (Four whole days!) Check out speakers and topics at http://www.cfunited.com/ - Michael Smith TeraTech, Inc Have 3 years of CF and love helping other developers? http://www.teratech.com/index.cfm?go=About.JobDetail&JobID=7 Conference and training news **************************** * Upcoming TeraTech classes FB201 - Intermediate Fusebox Mar 7 2006 CF206 - ColdFusion SQL Skills Mar 14 2006 Cost $59 - $349 see http://www.teratech.com/training/ for more details and registration CFUNITED NEWS! * Hotel guest room update. Currently the Bethesda North Marriot, the host of our event, is booked. This is even earlier than it filled up last year! We have an over flow hotel: Bethesda Marriott (Located about 1.5 miles from the conference center - there will be a shuttle to the conference center all day) 5151 Pooks Hill Road Bethesda MD 20814 To make reservations call: 1.800.228.9290 Use the group code: CFU See http://www.cfunited.com/travel.cfm for details. * Come to MDCFUG's CFUNITED Sneak Peek event on March 1st, 2006 at 7pm - 9pm at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Montgomery County Conference Center in the Brookside Room on the lower level. This is a chance to get the inside scoop at what is happening new at this year's main event in June and you also get to learn a more about ColdFusion too. CFDJ Editor Simon Horwith will present and take questions. Prize drawing for a copy of ColdFusion MX 7 Standard and a ticket to CFUNITED. We will also be doing video interviews with attendees on why you want to go to CFUNITED By the way, the event is FREE! (But registration is required). http://www.cfug-md.org/cfunited-sneak-peek.cfm * Pre-conference classes are posted. Limited seating. Register before March 31st and enter to win a free memory stick! CU210 Leader of the Pack (strategies for building better software) - Simon Horwith - Monday 6/26 CU211 Fundamentals of Relational Database - Kurtis D. Leatham - Monday 6/26 CU212 ColdFusion Server Administration: JRun J2EE Deployment - Adam Wayne Lehman - Monday 6/26 CU213 Testing ColdFusion - John Paul Ashenfelter - Monday 6/26 CU214 Ajax intensive for ColdFusion Developers - Rob Gonda - Tuesday 6/27 CU215 XML, XPath, and XSLT for ColdFusion Developers - Jeff Peters - Tuesday 6/27 CU216 Domain Modeling - Hal Helms - Tuesday 6/27 CU217 Beyond Basic SQL for CF - Nate Nelson - Tuesday 6/27 For more information about these classes go to http://www.cfunited.com/classes06.cfm *CFLive Hear CFUNITED speakers from your office via breeze talks every Thursday 12:30pm - 1pm EST. Learn new tips and ask questions live. To sign up for this week's talk go to: http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/4863968/ * Only 4 months until CFUNITED (117 days). * Timely bird price ends 3/31/06 * Can't afford to come for 4 days? Or can't take time off work during the week? Come to our Saturday only CFUNITED event. * Full time students and umemployed programmers substantial discounts available - email liz (at) teratech.com for your discount code. ****************************************************** And now our CFUNITED spotlight interview. Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Kurtis D Leatham about his CFUNITED-06 talk "Arrays, Structures, Multidimensional Arrays, Arrays of Structures, etc...". So why should a developer come to your session Kurtis? Kurtis D Leatham: Anybody who has developed an application using any programming language has probably used an array or a structure or something similar them. In ColdFusion you have the ability to create a complex container by mixing arrays and structures together. The developers who attend this session will learn how to build an array, a multidimensional array (MD Array), a structure, and then a complex container using a mixture of arrays and structures. We will discuss how to populate the complex container, and then retrieve the data from the complex container. The emphasis of the discussion will center on creating an MD Array that contains an MD Array that contains a structure. Best of all I will show the people attending this session that it really isn't that difficult to use a complex container!!! MS: Can you give an example of why a complex container is useful? KDL: A few months ago I was asked to build an applet the State of Idaho. The purpose of this applet was to automatically generate some dynamic reports for several different users at various times of the year. On the face of the request I didn't think that this would be a tough applet to build. Then I started getting into the nuts and bolts of the applet. Soon I was immersed in all sorts of database tables, arrays, and structures and I needed to find a way to manage all of that data at one time. The complex structure, in this case an MD Array that contained an MD Array that contained a structure, came to the rescue. In this case I needed a container to store the name of each report scheduled to be generated along with some information about the report so it could be E-Mailed to selected users. Then I needed to find a way to associate the selected users receiving one or more reports to each report. Finally I needed a way to pass parameters to the reports for each user as the report was being generated. All this information gets stored into an MD Array that contains an MD Array that contains a structure, something I call a complex container. MS: Wow that sounds like a headache! Was it hard to program? KDL: Not really Michael, like all big problems all you have to do is break it up into a sequence of small steps and then the problem isnt so intimidating. In this case I started with an MD Array to hold all of the data about the report itself. Then I realized that if I just added another MD Array to this array I could put all of my user data into that container. Finally I realized that the parameters that gets passed to the report belong in a structure so I appended a structure to my 2nd MD Array. CF made this task so easy that it is almost scary!!! MS: Why was this approach better than just storing the data in the database? KDL: Actually all of the data contained in the complex container comes from database tables. That is the beauty of it. This applet allows me to add as many reports that get generated automatically as is requested. The reports can be generated daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. It is a create the report, configure it, and forget about it because it will run as needed. Then I can associate any of these reports to as many different end users as is needed. Finally all of the users have their own report criteria so one report can be generated as many times as needed and each report is customized to the end user that is receiving the report. It took me five database tables to create the schema for this applet, the schema will be distributed during the presentation as well. MS: Neat - I can't wait to see the code! Will there be any documentation with it? KDL: Well.... there will be some documentation with the code sample and the schema but if somebody wants to get the full story they will have to attend the session!!! I will also be talking about the schema during my Database Design Fundamentals topic so there will be two chances for people to hear me discuss the schema that powers the auto report applet. MS: Cool - I am looking forward to seeing you at CFUNITED KDL: Thank you Michael, I can't wait!!! Arrays, Structures, Multidimensional Arrays, Arrays of Structures, etc... ************************* Ever run across a problem where you needed to store data into a multidimensional array that contains a multidimensional array that contains a structure? What would the logical storage container look like that houses a companies org chart? This topic will show you how to create such a complex container, populate it with data, and then get the data back out. We will be covering Arrays and Structures and ways that you can mix and match these containers to create one huge container for your complex data. This discussion will cover a real world example of an application that uses a complex container to automatically generate dynamic reports for several different people at different times throughout the year. The complex container that will be discussed houses information about the report itself, information about the people getting the report, and the unique parameters that gets passed into the report each time the report is generated. A sample applet will be provided that contains all of the required source code and database tables to implement an auto report generating applet. People attending this topic should have a good understanding of the following tags: CFQUERY, CFLOOP, CFOUTPUT, and CFSET. Speaker Bio: Kurtis D. Leatham is the owner and chief developer for KomputerMan.com, a Cold Fusion application development consulting company based in Boise, Idaho. He has been working in the Information Technology field since 1987 with the last six years exclusively as a CF Consultant. During this time he has designed, developed, and implemented two enterprise wide applications that run the Idaho Real Estate Commission offices and the State of Idaho Public Works Department. He has also performed work for the Central District Health Department of Idaho, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and Amkor Technology. Kurtis taught a Relational Database Design course at Boise State University for 3 ½ years. ************************** * Speakers include top names like Simon Horwith, Charlie Arehart, Hal Helms, Michael Dinowitz, Ray Camden, Ben Forta and many more respected CF authors and presenters. * Great tracks: * Bootcamp - Basic ColdFusion and Flash topics * Advanced - Advanced ColdFusion topics * Manager/Empowered - Fusebox and Project management topics * Flex/RIA - Flash, Flex and other technologies integrated with CF topics * Accessibility / usability - section 508, CSS and disabled access * Deployment/Platform - tuning, install issues, OS, picking a database * Included in your full conference registration is the following: * Attendence for 4 days (6/28/2006-7/1/2006) * Keynote and General Sessions * All conference sessions including repeat sessions on Saturday * Entrance to Expo Area * Networking Events * Badge and Badge holder with bar scan code * Free Lunch for each show day (Dinner is not included) * Access to all presentations after the event, including all the recordings. * Promotional bag with materials including show guide, CD, coupons, etc. * Opportunity to participate in all raffle drawings * Can't stay 4 days Wed - Sat? Optional 3-day and Saturday only packages available too. Saturday will consist of repeats the most popular sessions from the week - something many attendees asked for last year! * The early bird price of $649 for CFUNITED-06 ends 1/31/06. Price expires 4-day 3-day Saturday-only Early Bird 01/31/2006 $649 $549 $249 Timely Bird 03/31/2006 $749 $649 $299 Regular 06/16/2006 $849 $749 $349 Late 06/28/2006 $949 $849 $399 Door 06/29/2006 $1049 $949 $449 Save upto $400 by registering now! 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! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:234167 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
