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Google App Engine's Virtual File System with OpenBD

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:37:00 GMT

Working with the virutal file system on Google App Engine is fairly simple once you grasp the fact that all of your directories and files are really just BLOBs in the Google datastore. If you have worked with binary data from a database before, then this should be quite easy for you.

Interaction with the filesystem is easily done through openBD's implementation of the cfdirectory and cffile tags. You can CREATE and LIST directories from your VFS using the cfdirectory tag you know and love.

The "tricky" part comes when you find that none of the files you have uploaded are web accessible. In other words, you can upload to "/images" but you aren't going to be able to browse to "/images/mynewimage.jpg".

One solution would be to create a .cfm template to take a URL query string and serve up the requested file from the VFS.

For example: getfile.cfm?f=mynewimage.jpg

Which you could then use as the SRC in an IMG tag.

<img src="getfile.cfm?f=mynewimage.jpg" >

Where getfile.cfm might look like this:

<cffile action="readbinary" file="#ExpandPath('/images/' & url.f )#" variable="myFile">   <cfcontent type="#getMimeType(url.f)#" variable="#myFile#" reset="true" >

Note: I created this method called getMimeType() for an example site:

<cffunction name="getMimeType" >  <cfargument name="fileName" />  <cfset var extension = ListLast(arguments.fileName,".") />  <cfswitch expression=".#extension#">   <cfcase value=".bmp"> <cfreturn "image/bmp"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".css"> <cfreturn "text/css"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".js"> <cfreturn "text/javascript"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".jpg"> <cfreturn "image/jpeg"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".jpeg"> <cfreturn "image/jpeg"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".jpe"> <cfreturn "image/jpeg"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".doc"> <cfreturn "application/msword"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".docx"> <cfreturn "application/msword"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".gif"> <cfreturn "image/gif"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".gz"> <cfreturn "application/x-gzip"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".htm"> <cfreturn "text/htm"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".html"> <cfreturn "text/html"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".ico"> <cfreturn "image/x-icon"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".mov"> <cfreturn "video/quicktime"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".mp3"> <cfreturn "audio/mpeg"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".ppt"> <cfreturn "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".pps"> <cfreturn "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".tgz"> <cfreturn "application/x-compressed"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".txt"> <cfreturn "text/plain"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".wav"> <cfreturn "audio/x-wav"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".wmv"> <cfreturn "video/x-ms-wmv"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".xls"> <cfreturn "application/vnd.ms-excel"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".xlsx"> <cfreturn "application/vnd.ms-excel"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".zip"> <cfreturn "application/zip"> </cfcase>   <cfcase value=".xml"> <cfreturn "application/xml"> </cfcase>   <cfdefaultcase>    <cfoutput>#extension#</cfoutput> FILE TYPE NOT SUPPORTED    <cfabort>   </cfdefaultcase>  </cfswitch>  </cffunction>

Coldfusion on the Google App Engine with Open BlueDragon

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:54:00 GMT

The future is now!

A little melodramatic maybe, but this technology is exciting. Free cfml app servers with clustering (including data and file storage).

First, if you don't know what the Google App Engine is yet, go here first and do a little reading. Once you have read enough of that to be sufficiently excited, we need to set up the development and deployment tools. Paul Kukiel has put together a really nice demo on how to do this here. NOTE THERE IS ONE THING THAT IS INCORRECT IN THE VIDEO Do not delete the "war" directory, merely paste the openbd war over the existing one. This is important.

Next, reading and writing data with the Google datastore.

Storing data in a scalable web application can be tricky. A user could be interacting with any of dozens of web servers at a given time, and the user's next request could go to a different web server than the one that handled the previous request. All web servers need to be interacting with data that is also spread out across dozens of machines, possibly in different locations around the world.

Thanks to Google App Engine, you don't have to worry about any of that. App Engine's infrastructure takes care of all of the distribution, replication and load balancing of data behind a simple API—and you get a powerful query engine and transactions as well.

Thanks to the fine people at Open BlueDragon, this task is made very very simple. Every cfc in the openBD GAE inherits the following methods from component.cfc. GoogleWrite(), GoogleRead(), and GoogleKey().

-- Example object Status.cfc:

<cfcomponent displayname="Status" output="false">   <cfproperty name="Message" displayname="Message" type="string" />  <cfproperty name="DateTimeCreated" displayname="DateTimeCreated" type="date" />   <cffunction name="init" access="public" output="false" returntype="Status">   <cfreturn this/>  </cffunction>   <cffunction name="getMessage" access="public" output="false" returntype="string">   <cfreturn this.Message />  </cffunction>   <cffunction name="setMessage" access="public" output="false" returntype="void">   <cfargument name="Message" type="string" required="true" />   <cfset this.Message = arguments.Message />   <cfreturn />  </cffunction>   <cffunction name="getDateTimeCreated" access="public" output="false" returntype="date">   <cfreturn this.DateTimeCreated />  </cffunction>   <cffunction name="setDateTimeCreated" access="public" output="false" returntype="void">   <cfargument name="DateTimeCreated" type="date" required="true" />   <cfset this.DateTimeCreated = arguments.DateTimeCreated />   <cfreturn />  </cffunction>    </cfcomponent>

-- Writing data to the datastore:

<cfscript> //saving a new Status to Google datastore Status = createObject( "component", "model.Status" ).init(); Status.setMessage( "I love Google App Engine and OpenBD!" ); Status.setDateTimeCreated( Now() );  /*now all we do is call the googleWrite() method on our object, notice this returns the objects new google key*/ googleKey = Status.googleWrite(); </cfscript>

-- Querying the datastore: for more on this visit the openBD wiki page on the datastore

<!--- notice dbtype="google" and the quasi-SQL  ---> <cfquery dbtype="google" name="result"> Select from Status </cfquery>  <!--- The result of this query, is an array of matching Status objects.  Not the usual query recordset. --->

Securing your new web app with the UserServiceFactory (com.google.appengine.api.users.UserServiceFactory)

Once I figured this step out, it was almost embarassingly easy to secure a page, allowing access only to validated Google account holders.

<cfscript> UserServiceFactory = CreateObject("java","com.google.appengine.api.users.UserServiceFactory");  User = UserServiceFactory.getUserService().getCurrentUser();  /*Here I am doing a test to see if there is a valid user object returned, aka "logged in".  At this time, I haven't found the ideal solution for this*/  isLoggedIn = false;  try{    user.getEmail();    isLoggedIn = true; } catch (any excpt){}  </cfscript>  <!---  building login/logut links  --->  <cfif NOT isLoggedIn> YOU NEED TO <a href="<cfoutput>#UserServiceFactory.getUserService().createLoginURL(toString("http://#cgi.SERVER_NAME#"))#</cfoutput>">LOGIN</a> <cfelse>  <cfoutput>#request.user.getEmail()#</cfoutput>:  All your email are belong to us   <br />  <a href="<cfoutput>#UserServiceFactory.getUserService().createLogoutURL(toString("http://#cgi.SERVER_NAME#"))#</cfoutput>">LOGOUT</a> </cfif>

Time to build some real applications. Early indications from some experimentation by Dave Shuck, are revealing that the Mach-ii MVC framework along with the Coldspring IOC framework are working on the Google App Engine.

Other features, new or otherwise:

There is just no reason that we as cfml developers shouldn't be churning out app after app on this platform.

Mixing a little Flex with my Mach-II

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:11:00 GMT

One of my latest projects was to create a little contact manager / sales tool to integrate with an existing system (written in Mach-II). Requirements dictated that I needed to have access to my already logged in user (must be aware of client session). "Down the road" requirements, are that we'd like to make an AIR port of this new feature as a standalone application. As a big fan of Flex, I thought it would be a great opportunity to test the efficacy of writing this new feature as a drop in Flex mini-application.

Since security is handled by the existing application, we needed to make sure the functionality of this app respected the existing security guidelines. The best way I could think of was also the easiest...just start calling events and see what happens.

Lucky for me, it all just worked. So here are a few examples that might help get you started if you are working on the same sort of project.

On creationComplete I call a method named "init()" to get that user's set of contact data:

 private var myLoader:URLLoader;  public function init():void {  var myReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest('/index.cfm/event/GetContactData);  myLoader = new URLLoader()  myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, dataComplete);  myLoader.load(myReq); }

Important: Notice the event listener I added to call the dataComplete method once the request was completed.

Once we have that initial set of data, all that is left is to start POSTing the create/edit/deletes the user is making to his contacts.

Here is an example of doing an HTTP POST request and passing my Contact object to a Mach-II event:

private function saveContact(Contact:ContactVO):void {  var myHTTPService:HTTPService = new HTTPService;  myHTTPService.method= "POST";  myHTTPService.url = '/index.cfm/event/SaveContact';  myHTTPService.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT,function():void{init()});  myHTTPService.send(Contact);  Alert.show('Contact has been saved.'); }

Note: Check out how we send the Contact object without doing anything tricky? All of the properties of my ContactVO are available as event Args in my Mach-II listener.

Here is another example of doing an HTTP POST request, but passing individual variables:

private function submitNote(htmlText:String,plainText:String,Contact:ContactVO):void {  var myHTTPService:HTTPService = new HTTPService;  var obj:Object = new Object();  myHTTPService.method= "POST";  myHTTPService.url = '/index.cfm/event/saveNote';  obj['notetext'] = htmlText;  obj['notepreview'] = plainText;  obj['contactid'] = Contact.ContactId;  myHTTPService.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT,function():void{init()});  myHTTPService.send(obj); }

Note: Notice how we create an object and define the properties we want to send, and then pass that new object in the POST.

Looking to hire ColdFusion/Flex Developer (Addison, TX)

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:07:00 GMT

I am looking to hire a full time (on site only) ColdFusion developer.

The type of applications we work on range from support of old legacy applications to object oriented ColdFusion business layer with Flex 3 UI.

Experience working in frameworks is a major plus.

Industry: Mortgage software
Location: Addison, TX
Start Date: Immediate
Salary: Depends on Experience

About FICS:
FICS is a small, family owned company (50ish employees). Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Financial Industry Computer Systems, Inc.
(FICS®) specializes in providing flexible, comprehensive residential and commercial technology
solutions to the mortgage industry. FICS' solutions are designed around the latest technology,
while incorporating innovative imaging and Web-based capabilities into its full suite of products.

Job Function:

Troubleshooting/enhancing/support of existing web applications.
Developing primarily in ColdFusion with more and more Flex/ActionSript as we are moving towards Flex as our main UI technology.
HTML, JavaScript, CSS, minor image manipulation/creation (buttons, etc)

Requirements:

At least 2 years ColdFusion experience
Web design/layout experience with HTML, CSS and JavaScript
ActionScript/Flex experience is a plus
A good troubleshooting ability is necessary.

Please send resumes to aaronjlynch AT gmail DOT com

Thanks!

Aaron

Combine and compress your javascript files: Scriptalizer.com

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:37:00 GMT

After creating a custom tag and minifier component (using YUICompressor) I decided it would be a pretty neat service to offer to everybody. Last night I scrounged up a website and called it Scriptalizer.com.

If you want to test what cf_scriptalizer does to your javascript before you actually use the tag, you can try out the generated script provided by Scriptalizer.com.

NOTE: All source files uploaded is immediately deleted once generated.

Problem: WAY too many javascript files. Solution: cf_scriptalizer

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:44:00 GMT

Information about a custom tag to combine and compress javascript files.

InstantSpot.com is open for business!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:56:00 GMT

You might have noticed, ever since our Version 2.0 release, InstantSpot account creation has only been available for those with a valid invitation code.

Well, that is a thing of the past.

Thanks to all of our testers/users for helping us sort through any bugs encountered along the way. As always, if any issues are encountered please feel free to contact me directly or use the link in the control panel to report problems.

So what are you still doing here??! Go create your 'Spot now!

Create a custom pod with Sproutbuilder

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:44:00 GMT

Sproutbuilder is a new application that recently rolled out in a beta status. Basically it allows you to create widgets in a pretty nice Flex interface.

From their howitworks page:

Building a sprout is easy. Choose from dozens of pre-built templates or start from scratch. Drag-and-drop shapes, text, images, video, and more. Then add components such as slideshows, jukeboxes, and countdown clocks, as well as interactive services such as chat (Meebo), phone (Ribbit), fundraising (ChipIn), and more. Once you’ve got your content in place, use advanced editing and navigation tools to perfect your sprout.

Ultimately you end up with an embed code, like this

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" width="180" height="171" id="sUAAKe0cDAJqAatXf"><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="align" value="middle" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param /><param name="movie" value="http://farm.sproutbuilder.com/17661/load/UAAKe0cDAJqAatXf.swf" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://farm.sproutbuilder.com/17661/load/UAAKe0cDAJqAatXf.swf" width="180" height="171" wmode="transparent" align="middle" bgcolor="#ffffff" /></object> <img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/CIMP/Jmx*PTEyMDE3OTA5NTUxMDcmcHQ9MTIwMTc5MDk1NTY5MSZwPTEyMDc*MSZkPTE4MjgyJm49.jpg" />

Now, to add it to your InstantSpot site...gotta tie that in right :)

Log in to the control panel and click on the Widgets section.

Then, once you are there, you can click to add a pod, reorder, deactivate, etc...

Then, on to the end result...go look at your Spot.

CFUNITED 2007: Step One - Get There

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:12:41 GMT

Early Morning

The alarm clock goes off at 4:30 AM Tuesday morning. There I am, for a moment wondering what must have caught on fire for me to be awake at that terrible hour. but then I realized I had to be at Park Central Surgical Center at 5:45 AM in order for my son to have surgery! After several hours there (everything went perfectly btw) it was time to go home and get ready to head to the airport.

Getting There

My flight to Dulles was scheduled to depart at 4:15pm and touch down around 8:15pm, where I would be picked up by Enterprise and delivered to my rental car. I usually like to get to the airport a couple hours before take off, just to be sure I don't have any issues parking, getting through security, etc. So, around 2pm I roll through security with no issues (small blessings right?) and start waiting. And waiting. Apparently mother nature didn't like the plan, and proceeded to bring the pain on DFW.

I think somewhere around 200 flights were cancelled Tuesday night, luckily mine was not one of them. My flight was just delayed from taking off until around 7:40pm, placing me on the tarmac at Dulles around 11pmish. By the time I got my bag, and found the place where Enterprise was supposed to pick me up it was near Midnight. I waited and watched the Avis, Dollar, Alamo, National, Hertz, and Thrifty shuttles come and go over and over...for about an hour. It was then when I started realizing Enterprise wasn't really coming. Just as a last ditch effort I tried calling them...ALL of them! World Wide numbers, local numbers, road side assistance even! and I never could actually talk to a human.

I decided to just go ahead and get a cab to the hotel, it was a good 30 minute drive but I was tired and all of the other rental car companies were sold out anyways. So, lucky me I pulled the short straw and got the nice young Ethiopian taxi driver who was either drunk or very tired. And we embarked on a "thrill ride" swerving across lanes, speeding up to 80mph then dropping down to 50mph at no predictable interval. I wonder if he realized that I wasn't really interested in where he came from, but the only things I could try to talk to him about (to keep him awake!) was about Ethiopia (their form of currency is called a Birr, did you know that?) :|

Luckily, I made it here in one piece. Got a little bit of sleep. And made it to the key note speech only a few minutes late.

Thanks to Todd Sharp for giving me a ride to the conference!!!

It Was Worth It

Yes, it was worth the trouble getting here. Afterall, that is just something that can happen when you travel and after today's sessions (Wednesday) and getting to meet a few of the people I email with/read their blog/etc it has been a great experience.

Get to the Good Stuff

I have some notes that I took during my sessions today, and since its way too late to be first (thanks to Todd and Matt W.) :) I will do some summary posts for each day.

ColdFusion MX 7.0.2: Hot fix for IllegalStateExceptions in ModuleTag

Thu, 24 May 2007 01:05:32 GMT

Great news to those of us who have been experiencing the illegalStateExceptions and the related corrupted/truncated cfquery calls. Adobe just released a hotfix for ColdFusion MX 7.02.

Get the fix here: ~~http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=kb401830~~

***EDIT*** New Link (thanks for the new link Rich): http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402002&sliceId=1

This was issued to resolve the strange behavior I blogged about here: Corrupted queries in ColdFusion MX 7

(Issue documentation from Adobe.com)

Issue

Adobe has resolved an issue with IllegalStateExceptions thrown intermittently by ModuleTag. The stacktrace generated is similar to the following:

java.lang.IllegalStateException
at coldfusion.tagext.lang.ModuleTag.doAfterBody(ModuleTag.java:439)
at cfindex2ecfm842540228.runPage(C:\InetPub\wwwroot\IllegalStateException\index.cfm:18)
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:152)
at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:349)
at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:65)
at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:219)
at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:51)
...

The scenario where this problem occurs typically includes the following items:

Use of an application framework.

Use of Application.cfc and OnRequestEnd or OnSessionEnd method.

Calling methods on ColdFusion Components stored in shared scopes, often the application scope.

The use of custom tags.

Secondary issues caused by the IllegalStateException are often resolved by application of the patch. These issues have included query truncation and invalid parameter binding errors with cfquery and cfqueryparam.

Ben Forta in action

Tue, 01 May 2007 09:33:45 GMT

Ben Forta's Scorpio presentation to the Dallas Fort Worth CFUG last night did not dissappoint. I'm sure there are going to be a couple synopsis blog posts (I hear Dave furiously typing right now) so I figured I'd just post up a few of the pics.

Things of note.

The venue was fantastic, thanks AidMatrix!
Ben Forta knows how to work a room. This was my first opportunity to hear him speak, and he had me hooked in from the start.
The AJAX tie-ins look to be very very easy to use. There is soon to be absolutely no excuse for not using a little sprinkle of AJAX here and there in your application.
I can't wait to get my hand on the server monitoring tools. (What is this going to do to Seefusion and FusionReactor?)

....well, I'll let other people list the rest. Let me just say it has enough stuff that I'm sure Adobe will be able to sell upgrades fairly easily.

Thanks to Ben for putting on such a good show!

Corrupted queries in ColdFusion MX 7

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:51:08 GMT

I hate to think that there is possibly a flaw in ColdFusion...it pains me to say it. But I think there might just be a problem.

One of our latest projects was an object oriented application (lots of objects stored in memory) that sees a pretty decent load. For example, one day when we noticed a problem we had in the neighborhood of 20k connections.

After getting everything as smoothed out as possible, we are still seeing some pretty strange exceptions coming through. And for the most part they seem to deal with invalid SQL syntax of some sort of another.

Our system has quite a bit of dynamic querying going on, but I would say probably significantly less actual queries to the DB server on an average request.

It seems, that around a heavy traffic period we begin to see these SQL errors coming through. So, we feel that it could very possibly be related to memory issues...but, being pretty shorthanded we have not been able to really dig as deep into the issue as we would like.

Some of the more common exceptions:

Message: Error Executing Database Query

Detail: ... Syntax error at token 0, line 0, offset 0.

Message: Error Executing Database Query

Detail: ... Invalid parameter binding(s).

And a handful of actual corrupted SQL statements that make its way through.

Something like when querying a Users table... it might say

Message: Error Executing Database Query

Detail: ... Table 'Use' not found.

...basically truncating (maybe?) the SQL statement itself.

Initially the code was suspect, but we cannot find the source of the problem and so we hit Google for some commiseration.

Notice the last few comments on this blog post

And this forum thread on Adobe.com

Is anybody else experiencing this on their applications? The rumor is this issue is not present in Scorpio, but it would be nice if we could get a fix for MX7 if it truly is a CF bug.

***EDIT*** Link to the HotFix : http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402002&sliceId=1

cfcPowerTools is now open source

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:44:16 GMT

Tom Shreck just announced that he has decided to open source his cfcPowerTools product. Not too long ago Tom gave a presentation on thi s to our local cfug , and I was really impressed.

DEMO HERE

Some of the things it offers (lifted from riaforge):

* generate CFCs from database tables
* generate database table from CFC
* batch generate CFCs from multiple database tables
* generate HTML, FLASH, and XML data entry forms
* supports round trip editing
* getter/setter generation

cfcPowerTools is highly scalable. cfcPowerTools is built using templates. You can modify the templates packaged with cfcPowerTools, or generate your own. cfcPowerTools comes with the following templates out of the box:

* Model Controller
* MACH II
* Concrete
* Simple
* Default

cfcPowerTools makes you more productive. cfcPowerTools produces consistant, reliable, predictable, and documented code. Productivity features:

* Component Doc View - cfcPowerTools upsizes ColdFusion's component doc view allowing you to interact with your CFC. From the component doc view, you can add, edit, and delete methods as well as view methods.

* Code Behind - you can toggle between the meta data view for a cffunction and the actual cffunction code.

* ColdFusion Admin - cfcPowerTools utilizes your ColdFusion administrator login to secure access to cfcPowerTools functionality.

* Managed Code - you can designate section(s) of your code as managed code. cfcpowerTools will only regenerate the managed code sections, ignoring the rest of your code.

WANTED: ColdFusion contractor (Dallas/Fort Worth)

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:24:04 GMT

We NEED a junior to mid level ColdFusion developer on-site!

The job will consist of primarily maintenance on existing web applications, with the possibility of some new development (Mach-ii experience is a plus).

The contract would be at the very least 3-4 months in duration.

We are in a very aggressive new development cycle here, and there is a good chance the contractor would be included in that (given the right skill-set).

please email me for questions

Listen to ColdFusion Weekly...do it, do it

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:17:10 GMT

Just a quick shout-out.

Matt and Peter do a great job with their podcast (get it at www.ColdFusionWeekly.com ). So if you are even remotely interested in the current status of ColdFusion (and other related web dev topics), you need to do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

Those guys have been great supporters of InstantSpot. Giving us airtime , reporting feature enhancements, etc.

Thanks Matt and Peter!!!

WANTED: An application to share site designs.

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:03:42 GMT

Looking for an open source app to basically catalog and display thumbnail images of site designs, and then offer a way for the user to download the .css file associated with that style. (something like www.OSWD.org would be awesome).

Something that could take uploads from other users would be rad.

I did some SF.net searching but didn't see anything blatantly obvious. So I figured I would put it out there to see if there was some easy answer.

Get Your Free InstantSpot Site Now

Junior level ColdFusionist Needed

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:12:28 GMT

We are still looking for a junior (to mid) level ColdFusion programmer to come on site as a contractor. The company I work for is located in Addison, TX near Beltline and Midway.

Pay will depend on experience.

Please email me if you are interested. aaronjlynch AT gmail DOT com

Do you ever look at your old code...

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 06:13:16 GMT

...and hate it?

I notice that continually happens to me. Almost any time I revisit old code I am surprised by at least one thing I did that I would do differently now.

On one hand, I feel a very strong urge to re-write the darn thing...on the other, I feel like it is a good mile-marker for my progress as a developer. The fact that I can recognize better more efficient solutions to those old challenges means I am still learning.

Is DFW short on ColdFusion programmers?

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:10:26 GMT

Last night at the DFWCFUG meeting I thought it would be a good idea to mention that we are looking for a contractor to come help us out with some maintenance/new development for a 4ish month contract.

Well, I wasn't the only one with that idea. TEK Systems (the recruiter who offers the meeting room to us) announced they needed to fill a contract for Verizon. After that announcement, there were another 4 positions announced among our various members.

While it seems to be a good time to be a ColdFusion-ist in Dallas/Fort Worth...it might turn out to be a difficult time to find one to hire!

ps... if you are interested in an on-site contract position email me at aaronjlynch AT gmail DOT com

ColdFusion NEQ Cold Fusion

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:58:51 GMT

I notice a lot of Google searches where the user has searched for something related to "Cold Fusion" but really are looking for info on a ColdFusion topic. For some reason it annoys me, so here is my message.

It's spelled "ColdFusion" people!!! (you know who you are)

PER WIKIPEDIA:

ColdFusion is an application server and software development framework used for the development of computer software in general, and dynamic web sites in particular. In this regard, ColdFusion is a similar product to ASP.NET or Java Enterprise Edition.

Cold Fusion is a theoretical fusion reaction that occurs near room temperature and pressure using relatively simple devices. In nuclear fusion, multiple nuclei are forced to join together to form a heavier nucleus, and during that process, energy is released. The only known method of fusion that releases significant energy is the thermonuclear reaction, where temperatures and pressures are tremendous and must be contained within an as-yet technologically impractical fusion reactor - or be released, as by a fusion bomb.