Virtual CFUnited 2008

WORK IN PROGRESS

Thanks to Adobe, and their Connect product, several of the CFUnited presentations are online. I thought it would be easier for everyone if I just listed them for reference.

Keynote - Ben Forta & Adam Lehman

Highlights

• Confirmation that AIR was central to the development of ColdFusion 8
• Pride in the new open-ness to the bug reporting and feature request systems
• CF9 is called Centaur, will advance CFML and will improve both integration and the developer experience
• Adobe has recognised that the problem facing CF customers (and the industry) is the lack of developers. Therefore, ColdFusion (and training materials) will be totally free for students and faculty for academic use, similar to FlexBuilder
• A CFML Language Advisory Committee has been formed to define rules and guidelines for CFML now and in the future
• A sneak-peak at Centaur (CF9)
• UDFs and CFCs via CFSCRIPT (which is looking like C++ now...)
• LOCAL scope now pre-defined (no more cfset var local) and you don't have to predefine your local vars
• introduction of CFFINALLY (post CFCATCH) and CFCONTINUE
• yet another way of creating objects (new keyword),
• implicit constructors to shorten object creation,
• implicit getters and setters inside cfcomponent based on cfproperty,
• new Server.cfc file to run things on server start and server end;
• ColdFusion/AIR integration to be made easy by CF9;
• A look at the CF9-AIR sync/integration. It's temporary code, but shows what they're thinking about. Much more automatic in terms of online/offline database transactions.
• Object Relational Mapping will be implicitly included in CF9 (like Hibernate). This involves creating an instance of an object, setting properties then letting CF take care of the writing of that 'CFC' to the database. This is as simple as <cfcomponent orm="true" datasource="cfartgallery"></cfcomponent> It uses the CFC name to work out the table name. Remember: implicit getters and setters (which can be seen on a dump, even though they don't exist!).

Windows Mobile Essentials

I always seem to be flashing my HTC Artemis (O2 XDA Orbit, actually) with one ROM or another from XDA Developers.com.

So, I thought I'd make a list of the essentials that all ROMs either have to have pre-compiled or have to have installed shortly after them.

• Total Commander
• PocketCM
• Aquelaball
• Pipes
• Devet
• TomTom (of course)
• 10 Button Comm Manager
• S2U2 (aka Slide2Unlock)

Ariba Supplier Network and ColdFusion

This is more of an aide-memoire, but others might find it useful.

We are currently integrating our website with the Ariba Supplier Network. The ASN sends CXML messages to a configured web-page. Picking up these messages, however, is not as simple as just looking for a FORM post variable. You need to use the following, or similar:

<cfset var local = structNew()>

<cfset local.context = getHttpRequestData()>
<cfset local.xml = xmlParse(local.context.content)>

You'd need to wrap this in a cffunction for the "var local" bit to work.

This will leave you with the variable local.xml as an XML-type variable.

CFDevCon 2008

Details are beginning to emerge regarding the 2008 edition of CFDevCon - our UK conference for ColdFusion.

I went to the last one and, to be honest, I was little underwhelmed. Forget about the venue, that was disappointing, yes, but it was the first year and on a shoestring budget it was the best they could get. Seriously, though, Brighton??!?!?!?! That's an awfully long non-commutable journey.

What disappointed me last year was that, at the end of the conference it was announced that the next one would be bigger and longer (yay!) but would include other technologies such as Flash, Flex and .Net.

It seems, looking at the 2008 list of speakers that this is the route they have in fact gone down. The Silverlight presentation sticks out as a cry to Microsoft to be involved because it somehow gives the conference more validity. Wouldn't it have been enough to just stick with the ColdFusion angle and, maybe, the rest of the Adobe line (just because of the integration) rather than try to be all things to all people?

I'm still waiting for the full programme to emerge before I decide whether or not to go. With two sessions on Fusebox, though, and not enough case-study based sessions around general concepts (what's wrong with a session on MVC in general, rather than the over-complicated IMHO Fusebox, specifically?) it's not looking good so far, unfortunately.

moBlog - much improved and blogging now

Well, after much waiting for a Windows Mobile blogging cient, I finally return to the software that I tried originally, some 12 months ago.

And what an improvement it is! moBlog, by Sampath, is a revelation to set-up and use. No, the editor is not WYSIWYG, yes, it's a bit of a nightmare to set-up without the help provided online, yes, you have to manually write HTML, but for quick blogging with inbuilt image-insertion support, this is a much-needed solution for mobile bloggers.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

GLACIER - Creating a new ColdFusion Framework

After much frustration with other ColdFusion frameworks, in particular Fusebox, I decided to create a new framework that included a configurable plugin-style interface and an object factory. Just recently, the company I work for released their new website using this new framework.

However, as with all pieces of code, the minute you finish it, the minute you wish you could go back and start again and do it better. For instance, the framework (dubbed Icicle) is a bit too tied into the application that it supports for my liking. There are modules that are in the wrong place, logically, and others that exist when they shouldn't and vice versa.

So, whilst restructuring the application for multi-site, I decided to redevelop the Framework so that it could be used away from the corporate site it was designed for.

This new framework will be known as GLACIER, just to continue, ad nauseum, the ice theme, and will be documented and eventually released here. I hope you like it - please tell me if I'm going in the wrong direction!

Review - Bridge to Terabithia - Aaron Zigman

In brief: soaring, fantastical and inherent beauty.

A companion to: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Gregson-Williams)

Recording: Expanded promo, 30 tracks, 60 minutes

Review

Aaron Zigman is not a name I've head of, so I was quite excited going into this one. From what I know of the film, we are looking for awe-inspiring fantasy, so let's see what he's come up with...

There is something reminding me in parts of the zealousness of James Horner's Krull for the fantasy and militaristic themes here, but Bridge nonetheless always manages to hold onto a feeling of wonderment not found in that other work. Whether this is done through a vast range of instruments, harp/percussion combinations or a well-used female choir, it is this wonderment that really catches the attention.

There are some very pretty guitar-piano constructions reminiscent of Thomas Newman's "weird Americana' forms from American Beauty and also a little of Horner's more offbeat work on Field of Dreams and The Spitfire Grill.

Individual cues on this album, by it's very nature of being a 'promo' are short, but they all offer something to the listener. Think of your favourite magazine, where you're able to read all of it, rather than just the main editorials, and you'll get an idea of the kind of level of enjoyment I take listening to it.

At times, Zigman offers us a canvas that is perhaps too broad, with so much thematic material on display that it can be overwhelming (like the Gregson-Williams/Powell animation scores) but I'm not sure this is such a bad thing considering the world of fantasy the score exists within.

In between the action and caper cues, there are some sad moments, such as "It's All Gone" which proves that this score isn't all about light-hearted stuff. Beautiful string sections with underplayed flutes are simply breathtaking here.

Overall, Bridge to Terabithia is an astonishing work and offers something truly different, and more mature than you would expect for a children's fantasy adventure film. I hope my score reflects that.

Track Listing

1. Main title
2. Into the forest
3. The battle
4. The giant's hand
5. At the museum
6. Janice down
7. Troll hunting
8. Running through the paddocks
9. Squogres
10. To the museum
11. Seeing Terabithia
12. Jesse's bridge
13. Painting
14. Jess takes the bus
15. Building the fort
16. Darkmaster
17. Searching for the giant
18. Getting Janice
19. The race
20. Jess punished
21. The trap goes off
22. Main title alt.
23. Leslie dies
24. It's all gone
25. All of Terabithia
26. Paying respects
27. Jess grieves
28. Leslie's driving
29. Free the pee
30. Janice the bully

Expanded Promo Release