When I started I was using Macromedia's Director. It was the most productive
and definitely the most enjoyable stage of my career - we had a great tool to
build great products. Sadly the CD-ROM market bombed as the novelty wore off,
and as business began eyeing the Web with dollar signs in its eyes, I decided
to get involved.
Working on the Web was nowhere near as productive - the tools weren't
available and there was the endless disagreement about what we were trying to
achieve.
I solved one of those problems myself - I set up on my own and only took on
jobs where the client and I shared a vision of the Web as a means of
publishing information, and the process of Web publishing as building
information systems, and then using the Web as a means of viewing, searching
and editing that information.
The other problem was solved when I discovered ColdFusion. It had all t... (more)
A two-part series looks at techniques for shifting workload away from the
application server onto the database by using "extra" database tables.
Most ColdFusion programmers understand that when it comes to bulk inserting
into a database, it isn't good practice to loop over text files one line at a
time with a . However, when faced with the realities of a data feed
that needs preprocessing, comparing to existing data, and then
postprocessing, good intentions sometimes fall by the wayside.
The theory is simple - if you have a large amount of data (typically tabbed
or comma ... (more)
Coding ColdFusion and coding JavaScript are about as far apart on the
productivity spectrum as it's possible to be. CF tags are neat, easy to read,
tolerant, and fun to write. JavaScript is none of that. It has all the
drawbacks of traditional languages, with the added disadvantage of sitting
somewhat awkwardly within the HTML document model.
Anything but the most trivial JavaScript is difficult to write, difficult to
debug, and difficult for either the author or another developer to revisit,
but, as much as I'd like to, it isn't possible to do without it for
interactive Web sit... (more)
One of the reasons I was first drawn to ColdFusion was the built-in
functionality for such things as sending e-mail, making HTTP requests, FTP
uploads - all the myriad subsidiary functions you inevitably find yourself
using when you build and manage large sites.
Content has to be downloaded from here, uploaded to there, and e-mailed to
thousands of users every day.
Using only standard ColdFusion functionality keeps things neat and easy to
support. And for all the warnings about not running an SMTP server on the
same machine as your Web server, I'm sure many developers have a site... (more)
[Ed. Note: We've run articles on this in the past, but - we can never say it
enough!]
Cutting ColdFusion code is fun, and therein lies ColdFusion's biggest
problem. It's too easy to get carried away writing code to do things that
should be happening in the database itself - or often shouldn't be happening
at all. It's also just too easy to use. You can get up and running far too
quickly, and get into trouble even quicker. Sometimes experienced developers
get carried away trying to do too much; beginners often start to run before
they can walk.
When I came across a site where a ... (more)
Tom Peer has been in electronic publishing of one sort or another for ten years, including a stint as manager of New Scientist Online (www.newscientist.com). He specializes in taking printed publications online and has recently completed the online edition of The World Handbook of Stock Exchanges (www.exchange-handbook.com).
Charles Araujo
Brendan Harding
