Chip Temm

Early releases of Cold Fusion (under Allaire) focused on the Windows market and it was common to include example Access databases. It was common for entry-level developers to take this example to heart and build systems on Access back-ends. One didn't have to install, set up, admin, or most importantly pay for anything. With the beta release of ColdFusion 8, Adobe is providing support for an array of open source databases. Now using PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Apache Derby (formerly IBM Cloudscape) has been made that simpler for CF developers since JDBC drivers for all of them are included. Any of these solutions can be used for the free distribution of databases on either Windows or *nix. The same can't be said of Access. Adobe has made moving to open source more convenient by including Derby in the base install of Scorpio. It will now likely become common for systems to... (more)

Agile SOA Governance in SMEs

The increased manageability, reliability, and opportunities for reuse promised by a SOA can only be fulfilled with an effective governance structure in place to coordinate service creation, maintenance, provisioning, and consumption. However, many small and medium-sized organizations struggle when starting their service catalog due to the seeming contradiction between the strategic benefits of SOA and the often negative impact that governance can have on individual line-of-business project schedules. How do we get our projects done while building a service portfolio? This articl... (more)

Forget Blogs, Make Way For "Flogs" – Filtered Weblogs

It's a great problem to have: thousands of people like yourself providing daily updates from the leading edge of your craft. If you want to learn where things are going in the world of Web programming, you need to read blogs and lots of them.  Aggregators help make that easier, but only by reducing the amount of running around to find new sources. The quantity of content flowing through these channels is daunting and the quality highly variable. Somewhere in this big stack of articles, sometimes hundreds a day, are things you need to read to stay ahead of the curve. How do you ... (more)

Extending Component Metadata for Enhanced Documentation

With the introduction of MX, ColdFusion programmers started to move away from the world of hard-to-maintain reams of scripts with includes, and into the world of clearly defined libraries with specific responsibilities. CustomTags were a good stab at re-usable code, but focused on the level of the function as opposed to grouping functions, which meant the method lacked a good way to define the return value and had scoping issues. User defined functions (UDFs) gave us a clear return value, but still left us longing for classes. For several years now, we've had ColdFusion Components... (more)

Model-Driven Development with ColdFusion and UML

The sign of an experienced developer is solid design. Novices edit examples they find on the Net, journeymen figure out how to code something as they do it, but craftsmen plan their work. Starting out, this can look like wasted time, but if your app is any good, your customer will want to expand it. Then, if you need some help, you'll have to explain all that intuitive code to ten people, all of whom you are paying by the hour. Diagrams would be nice then, right? Many development organizations are moving toward more structured development cycles, involving formal documentation s... (more)