Bob's Blog - ColdFusion Tidbits - cfObjective

View the Presentations from the cf.Objective() Pecha Kucha BOF

Mon, 03 May 2010 09:10:00 -0400

If you weren't one of the lucky ones who were able to attend the cf.Objective() Pecha Kucha BOF in April of this year, you can still have a chance to see these nine fantastic presentations. The event turned out to be just as fun and interesting as I had hoped, which is entirely thanks to the hard work of the presenters. Fortunately Michael Canonigo recorded all but one of the presentations, and Anthony Israel-Davis managed to somehow magically record his own, so they are all available for viewing via YouTube.

I've created a YouTube playlist that you can watch to see the intro followed by all nine of the presentations, or, if you want to check them out one at a time they are each linked to their respective speaker below.

Thanks again to all of the speakers and all who attended. Hopefully this can become a regular event at cf.Objective() and even possibly at other conferences.

ValidateThis Futures from cf.Objective()

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:45:00 -0400

I returned from cf.Objective() a few days ago and have been catching up on all sorts of things. I hope to post a review/discussion of the conference as a whole soon, but for now I just want to touch on some things that came up around ValidateThis.

I gave a presentation entitled Easy and Flexible Validations for Objects during which I described what ValidateThis is, and showed how easy it is to work with. I demonstrated that you can add client-side validations to a form with a single line of code, and can perform server-side validations with just a few lines. I also discussed the different types of validation scenarios that VT is designed to address. There were some questions and suggestions which have prompted me to think of future enhancements to the framework, so I wanted to discuss them here. [More]

Sign Up for ColdFusion ORM Training and Get a Copy of the "Hibernate Bible"

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:05:00 -0400

Mark Mandel, and I have decided that we're going to give a copy of the book Java Persistence with Hibernate to each and every student at our Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping workshop, which is running from May 20-21, 2010 in Minneapolis, MN, which also happens to be the two days immediately preceding the cf.Objective() conference.

I've discussed this two-day, hands-on workshop at length in a previous blog post, so I won't repeat myself here, but one of the goals of the course is to teach you what you need to know about Hibernate to be effective with ColdFusion 9's ORM features. Although the Adobe engineering team have done an excellent job of integrating Hibernate into ColdFusion, it is still essential to understand quite a bit about Hibernate to make appropriate use of the features. Hibernate is a complex beast, and although we'll be teaching most of what you'll need to know in the course, it's always helpful to have a reference manual handy.

There is a lot about Hibernate that is not covered in the ColdFusion documentation, and Mark and I both feel that Java Persistence with Hibernate is the best book currently available on the market about Hibernate. We want to arm our students with the tools they'll need to continue their ORM education after the workshop, which is why we've decided to give a copy of the book to each student.

There are still spaces available in the class, so if you'd like to become a ColdFusion ORM ninja in just two days, and get a free copy of the "Hibernate Bible" as well, sign up today.

cf.Objective() Pecha Kucha BOF - On Like Donkey Kong!

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:12:00 -0400

There will be eight Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions at cf.Objective() this year, all of which sound interesting, but the one I'm most excited about is the Pecha Kucha BOF that I've organized. This will feature nine speakers giving short presentations on a number of diverse topics. The Pecha Kucha format dictates that each presentation will consist of 20 slides each displayed for 20 seconds, yielding a quick presentation of about six minutes.

Topics will be both technical and personal, and although I don't have the final list of topics yet, I can share the list of confirmed speakers with you. They are:

That is a pretty stellar line-up, if I do say so myself, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what each person comes up with. If you'll be attending cf.Objective() this year I hope you'll be able to join us.

I'm Invading Your Airwaves Again

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:24:00 -0400

Yes, once again I've been interviewed for a ColdFusion podcast, and this time it's CFHour. Dave and Mike allowed me to wax poetically about a wide range of topics including ValidateThis, my validation framework for ColdFusion objects, the upcoming cf.Objective() conference and the pre-conference training that will be available, Model-Glue, specifically some of the new features that will be included in version 3.2, MXUnit, again talking about what's coming in version 2.0, and Dave also tricked me into weighing in on the CFBuilder debate.

It was a lot of fun, and I really appreciate being given the opportunity to let people know about all of this great stuff that is available to the ColdFusion community. If you don't mind listening to my Canadian accent for close to an hour, I encourage you to give it a listen. It's available via iTunes, and can also be listened to or downloaded directly from the show page.

The This Week in ColdFusion Podcast is Back!

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:58:00 -0400

That's right, the mighty fine folks who bring you the This Week in ColdFusion podcast have released a new episode. After what seems like an interminable hiatus, the boys are back and guess what? I'm on it too! I was interviewed about the upcoming cf.Objective() conference and the incredible pre-conference training that will be available. I also discussed the Pecha Kucha BOF that I am organizing.

After my cameo Brian and Mike had a lively and informative chat about design patterns, which I stuck my nose into from time to time. It was great fun and I encourage you to give it a listen. It's available via iTunes, and can also be listened to or downloaded directly from the show page.

Vote for Topics for cf.Objective() BOFs

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:49:00 -0400

Did you know that you can have a say on what topics will be discussed at the BOFs (Birds of a Feather sessions) at cf.Objective() next month? Just take this incredibly fast, one-question survey and make your voice heard. This should take no more than 30 seconds of your time, so what are you waiting for? Vote now!

Coming to cf.Objective()? What Interests You?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:40:00 -0400

The folks organizing cf.Objective() are in the process of finalizing the BOF sessions and are looking for feedback from you!

In case you're unfamiliar with the term, BOF stands for Birds of a Feather and it's an informal session in which the attendees get a chance to chat about a topic with other developers who have similar interests. It's a great chance to get a bit more interactive - you get to participate rather than just sit and watch.

I suggested that during one of the BOF sessions we do a series of Pecha Kucha presentations, which are similar to Ignite presentations, and my suggestion was graciously accepted by the committee. I blogged about this session previously and am still looking for volunteers to present, so if you're interested in that please mosey on over to that blog post and comment.

There are seven remaining BOF slots, and Sean Corfield has blogged about the other topics that have been suggested thus far. Here's a summary:

Open BlueDragon
Security
Extending Mura
Home Brewed ColdFusion Monitoring
Being Agile
Guitar Hero
ColdFusion 10
Mobile Development
SciFi
Photography
Poetry Slam
Open Source Project Discussion
Test-Driven Development (TDD)

Decisions will be made in the not-too-distant future, and to help you vote on topics and make new suggestions a survey has been created. It's a one-question survey that should take no more than about 30 seconds to complete, so if you'll be attending cf.Objective() please take the time to add your opinion.

I hope to see many of you at cf.Objective() in April!

Become a ColdFusion ORM Ninja in Just Two Days!

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:47:00 -0400

I've mentioned previously that Mark Mandel, the mastermind behind Transfer ORM, JavaLoader, ColdDoc, and now the lead developer of Coldspring, and I have developed an intensive, two-day, hands-on workshop on ColdFusion's new ORM features. We will be delivering that workshop, Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping, in Minneapolis, MN on April 20-21, 2010 which are the two days immediately preceding the cf.Objective() conference.

Really? I Can Master ColdFusion ORM in Two Days?

You bet you can! This is an extreme hands-on workshop. We won't be lecturing at you, we'll be working with you. For each concept that we cover we'll be writing code together, both the instructor and the students, working towards building a single, working application. Then, once we've done that together, you'll be let loose on your own to practice the concepts again on your very own project, which is yet another application which will be built incrementally using the concepts that you just learned. This means you'll have lots of chances to practice your newfound skills, and, more importantly, to make your own mistakes. You'll either figure out how to fix your mistakes yourself, with the help of one of your fellow students, or with the help one of the two instructors. You'll learn by doing, and what's more, you'll leave the class with lots of examples of working code that you wrote yourself.

This is why we say that we can help you master ColdFusion ORM in just two days. Not only will you be ready to start using it in your next project, but you'll also be in an ideal position to teach it to your fellow developers.

About the Instructors

I've been working with Transfer ORM for a few years, and have been working with ColdFusion's ORM integration since early in the product beta. I've blogged about it extensively, delivered a number of one-hour presentations on the subject and have created and regularly contribute to a Google group (cf-orm-dev) dedicated to discussing some of the more advanced and esoteric topics around ColdFusion's ORM integration.

As for Mark, in addition to creating his own ColdFusion-based ORM (Transfer), he's also worked extensively with Hibernate (the ORM that is integrated into ColdFusion 9) and is considered by many to be the foremost expert in all things ORM in the ColdFusion community. This therefore represents a unique opportunity to learn about this new, exciting and productivity enhancing technology from two people who know it very well, and have real-world experience developing with it.

Do I Have to Be an OO Guru to Attend?

Definitely not! We assume no prior knowledge of ORMs or Object Oriented programming, and the techniques that we teach can be used, if you wish, in a totally procedural application. So you neither need to know OO to join in, nor do you need to learn OO in order to use what you learn in your own work (although we would encourage you to do so). Some experience working with CFCs would be helpful, but we can get you up to speed pretty quickly even if you lack that.

Where is the Workshop Being Held?

As mentioned above, the workshop is running as a pre-conference training session at cf.Objective(), and will take place from April 20 - 21, 2010 at the conference hotel, which is the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, MN.

How Much Does it Cost?

We have made the early-bird price into a permanent discount, so although the original price was listed at $1200 for the two days you can now enroll for just $1000.

How Do I Sign Up?

You can register for the training via cf.Objective()'s registration form.

Can Anyone Attend?

Although the workshop is being offered as a cf.Objective() pre-Conference class, you don't have to attend cf.Objective() in order to enroll. So if you've having trouble getting your boss to pony up for a trip to cf.Objective(), perhaps you can convince him or her to at least send you to these two days of invaluable training.

What Topics Will Be Covered?

Here's a summary of the topics that we'll be covering:

Introduction to ORM
Introduction to Hibernate
Configuring ORM
Working with Objects
- Creating an Object
- Retrieving an Object / Lists of Objects
- Updating an Object
- Deleting an Object
- Arrays of Objects vs. Queries
Mapping Objects
- Ids and Properties
- Many-to-One Relationships
- One-to-Many Relationships
- Many-to-Many Relationships
- Formulas
- Collection Mapping
- Inheritance
- Cascade Options
Hibernate Internals
- Hibernate Sessions
- Session Flushing
  - How It Works
  - How to Control It
- Working with Transactions
- Hibernate Object State
  - Transient, Persistent and Detached
  - How Objects Move between States
Lazy Loading
- Overview
- How it Affects SQL
- Dealing with Detached Objects
Concurrency
HQL
- What is HQL?
- Basic Queries
- Criteria / Parameters
- Joins
- Pagination
- Bulk Updates
Application Architecture
- Using a Service Layer with ORM
- Using an Abstract Service
Caching
Event Handling
DDL (Database) Generation

Truly a Unique Opportunity

Although we do have plans to make the course available at other venues in the future, Mark and I live on opposite sides of the planet, and it just so happens that we'll both be attending cf.Objective() this year. It's likely that future classes will feature either Mark or I as instructors, as it's a rare occurrence that we're both in the same place at the same time, so don't miss this unique opportunity.

Looking for More Information?

I think I've covered most of what you need to know about the course in this post, but if you're looking for even more information about it please visit our web site at www.ColdFusionORMTraining.com.

Two Important Deadlines for ColdFusion Developers

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:06:00 -0400

Update: The early-bird rate for the pre-conference training sessions, has been extended, as has the deadline for CFUnited voting!

Just wanted to post a quick reminder to folks of the following dates:

cf.Objective() Pre-Conference Early-Bird Extended!

The discounted early-bird rate for the cf.Objective() conference fee has expired, but the discounts on most of the pre-conference training sessions, has been extended. You can still save $200 off of Mark Mandel and my two-day hands-on workshop, Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping if you register soon. So what are you waiting for? Registration is done via the cf.Objective() web site.

And if ORM isn't your thing, there are a whole bunch of workshops from which to choose, most of which are offering discounts:

Building Secure CFML Applications (April 21) - Jason Dean and Pete Freitag
Coldbox:100 Training (April 21) - Luis Majano
Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping (ORM) (April 20-21) - Bob Silverberg and Mark Mandel
Getting Started with Flex and AIR Development with the Flex SDK (April 21) - John Mason
Mach-II and OOP from the Ground Up (April 20-21) - Kurt Weirsma, Peter Farrell and Matt Woodward
Rapid Development with Model-Glue 3 (April 20-21) - Dan Wilson and Ezra Parker

Voting for CFUnited Ends February 20th

The folks at CFUnited have given the ColdFusion community the opportunity to help choose which sessions will be included by voting on them. Unfortunately the window of opportunity is very small, with the vote closing on February 20th. So get out there and vote, and while you're there please consider voting for Marc Esher's sessions. He's an awesome speaker and no slouch in the brain department, and his proposed End-to-End Testing Roundtable will be a session not to miss.

Awesome Training Available Before cf.Objective()

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:44:00 -0400

As you're no doubt aware, cf.Objective(), "The World's Only Enterprise Engineering Conference for ColdFusion Developers", is coming to Minneapolis, MN from April 22-24, 2010. It's an outstanding opportunity to learn a ton of stuff, and to network and socialize with like-minded developers. I am pleased and honoured to be speaking, twice, for the second year in a row. What you may not realize, however, is that in the days prior to the conference there is a boatload of training available.

Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping

Mark Mandel and I will be delivering a comprehensive hands-on workshop on Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping for two whole days, from April 20-21, and it's going to be fantastic, if I do say so myself. If the new features of ColdFusion's ORM integration don't interest you (buy why wouldn't they?), there are five other choices.

Something For Everyone

Here's the full list of all of the courses available:

Building Secure CFML Applications (April 21) - Jason Dean and Pete Freitag
Coldbox:100 Training (April 21) - Luis Majano
Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping (ORM) (April 20-21) - Bob Silverberg and Mark Mandel
Getting Started with Flex and AIR Development with the Flex SDK (April 21) - John Mason
Mach-II and OOP from the Ground Up (April 20-21) - Kurt Weirsma, Peter Farrell and Matt Woodward
Rapid Development with Model-Glue 3 (April 20-21) - Dan Wilson and Ezra Parker

There really is something for everyone, and the instructors are all top-notch.

Anyone Can Attend

Something else you might not realize; you don't have to attend cf.Objective() in order to sign up for and attend a pre-Conference training class. So, if you've been hankering to learn more about CF9 ORM, application security, ColdBox, Model-Glue, Mach-II, or Flex and AIR development, go for it!

The Early-Bird Ends Friday

I'll close with a reminder; the discounted early-bird rates, which apply to both the cf.Objective() conference fee and to most of the pre-conference training sessions, expires this Friday, January 29th. So why not save some cash and sign up right now? Registration is done via the cf.Objective() registration form.

I hope to see many of you there in April.

I'll Be Presenting at cf.Objective() in April

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:37:00 -0400

I am pleased and honoured to announce that I'll be presenting at cf.Objective(), billed as the Only Enterprise ColdFusion Conference, which runs from April 22-24 in Minneapolis, MN. It's going to be quite the experience for me. Not only am I speaking on two topics (details to follow in a separate post):

Easy and Flexible Validations for Objects
What Your Mother Never Told You About CF9 ORM

I'm also organizing a Pecha Kucha Birds of a Feather session (BoF), during which people will be giving mini-presentations in which they show 20 slides for 20 seconds each. I've written about this BoF on my blog previously, but I'll mention again that anyone interested in presenting should leave me a comment on my blog or email me directly at bob dot silverberg at gmail dot com.

As if that's not enough, Mark Mandel and I will be delivering a comprehensive hands-on two-day pre-conference workshop on Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9 Object Relational Mapping. A separate post with the details of that workshop will follow, but in a nutshell it is designed to give you all of the information you need to get up and running with ColdFusion 9's ORM features in your next project. You'll write a ton of code, learning the basics as well as best practices and things to watch out for. I think it's going to be a lot of fun (in addition to a great learning experience).

Registration is now open, both for the conference and for the CF9 ORM workshop (you can sign up for it during the conference registration). There is a discounted rate for both the conference and the training available until January 29th, so you might want to register sooner rather than later.

I hope to see many of you there in April.

Anyone Can Speak at cf.Objective! (for around six minutes)

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:54:00 -0400

Have you ever heard of Pecha Kucha? Sometimes referred to as 20 x 20, Pecha Kucha is an innovative presentation format in which you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds, resulting in a presentation that is six minutes and forty seconds long. It was invented by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture in Tokyo to give their fellow architects an opportunity to present their ideas. The format is designed to result in presentations that are fast-paced and focussed, essentially allowing the speaker to get one key idea across in an interesting and visual manner.

The idea has blossomed into a global movement of Pecha Kucha Nights, which are social gatherings as much as opportunities to hear about new and interesting topics and ideas. Although Pecha Kucha has been used extensively in "creative" fields such as design and architecture, it has also been used by those in the information technology realm. For example, XP Days Germany included a number of Pecha Kucha presentations on both the second and third day of the conference. Subjects covered included (translations from German by Google, so apologies for that):

Our Journey into the Agile Country
Continuous Open Space
Software Craftsmanship
Best Practices for Unit Testing of GUI Applications

As well, the Sydney Adobe Platform Users Group hosted their own 20 x 20 nite back in November, which included topics such as:

Creating a web server in 6 minutes
Building a boat in 9 years and 2 weeks
Browser Ghosting Attack
Mars Landscape

Providing perhaps a better introduction to the idea of Pecha Kucha, Daniel Pink of Wired Magazine wrote a short article on the format, which includes a sample Pecha Kucha presentation that he created to illustrate the idea.

So, why am I taking the time to introduce the idea of Pecha Kucha to you? I thought that it would be interesting to create a Pecha Kucha session at cf.Objective() in April of 2010. It will be held as a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session, and anyone who is interested in speaking and able and willing to put together a 20 x 20 presentation is welcome to do so. As with the Sydney night mentioned above, your topic does not have to be technology-based, but should have some appeal to a wider audience. If you'd be interested in participating as a presenter, please leave a comment or contact me directly at bob dot silverberg at gmail dot com to let me know.

If you think that you might be interested, but are a bit nervous or aren't sure how to proceed, please feel free to contact me and I can try to answer any questions you have, provide you with resources, and generally attempt to assuage your fears. I'll also be setting up a Google Wave for all of the presenters so we can share thoughts and ideas.

I think this could be a great opportunity for those who might not otherwise get to present at a conference, although this Pecha Kucha BoF is not limited to them. I also think it could be a heck of a lot of fun, so please consider offering to speak, if only for six minutes and forty seconds.

New Stuff for MXUnit, Model-Glue and ValidateThis on the Horizon

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:27:00 -0400

I've been extremely busy over the past couple of months on a number of projects, both for clients and open source, which has lowered my blog post output to approximately zilch.

I thought I would write a quick note about some items that I've been working on, and that should hopefully see the light of day in the ColdFusion open source world in the near future.

MXUnit Mocking Integration

Bill Shelton, of MXUnit fame, has written a mocking framework called MightyMock that has been close to being released for quite some time. I've used it and I liked it a lot. Bill and I discussed integrating it with MXUnit itself, to make mocking super easy for developers using MXUnit, and during the discussions we realized that it would be nice if MXUnit could support generating mocks via any framework, not just MightyMock. I set out to build a plugin architecture that would allow for any ColdFusion based mocking framework to be used with MXUnit. Thus far I have it working with MightyMock, ColdMock and MockBox. We're still working on the final bits and pieces, but if anyone is interested in giving it a try let me know and I can point you in the right direction.

Model-Glue ColdFusion 9 ORM Support

If you're a user of the Model-Glue MVC Framework you're probably aware of the fact that a couple of ColdFusion ORMs (namely Transfer and Reactor) can be used quite seamlessly with the framework via what's referred to as an ORM Adapter. This allows Model-Glue developers to take advantage of Generic Database Messages (GDMs), which provide for automatic CRUD (creating, reading, updating and deleting records in database tables) as well as basic listings. These GDMs also form a part of a feature called Scaffolds, which takes the automation even further by generating view and controller code for maintaining database tables. Using Scaffolds you can get a complete CRUD solution up and running in a matter of minutes.

With the release of ColdFusion 9 there's a new ORM player in the game, namely ColdFusion itself, with its new Hibernate integration. Dennis Clark and I have been developing a Model-Glue ORM adapter for ColdFusion 9's built-in ORM and it is nearly ready to be released. If you are interested in taking a look at it, or willing to help with testing it, please let me know.

The Model-Glue Documentation has more information available on both Generic Database Messages and Scaffolds.

ValidateThis CF9/ColdBox Sample Application

John Whish has been kind enough to contribute some bug fixes and enhancements to the ValidateThis core, as well as the ColdBox plugin. He's also been working on a ValidateThis/ColdBox 3/CF9 ORM sample application, which I plan to contribute to as well and should be made available in the near future.

ValidateThis CFWheels Integration

Mike Henke and I have been working on getting ValidateThis to work with the ColdFusion on Wheels framework, which just celebrated its 1.0 release. Although ValidateThis is designed to be totally framework agnostic (meaning it can be used with any framework without modification), because it is designed to validate ColdFusion objects, it relied on the fact that those objects would expose getters for each of their properties. That is standard practice throughout most of the CF world, but Wheels is a bit different. Its objects do not have getters for their properties, so the server-side validations were unable to determine the values of any properties, which rendered them useless.

Thanks to the encapsulation afforded by a decent object oriented design, I was able to enable ValidateThis to work with these new types of objects (which don't have getters) with a couple of minor code changes to the framework. Mike and I now have a version of ValidateThis that works with traditional objects as well as with "Wheels style" objects. Mike is also working on a new ValidateThis sample application, using CFWheels. Once we're done testing and have a decent sample application this new version of ValidateThis will be released, along with the new sample.

ColdFusion 9 ORM Training

Finally, I'd just like to mention that Mark Mandel and I will be delivering a comprehensive two-day, hands-on course covering Developing Applications with ColdFusion 9's new ORM features as a pre-Conference workshop at cf.Objective() this year. The course will run from April 20th to April 21st, 2010. Much more info will be available soon.

Happy Holidays everyone!

An Object Oriented Approach to Validations - Recording Available

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:39:00 -0400

I'm happy to announce that the presentation that I delivered to the Online ColdFusion Meetup last night, entitled An Object Oriented Approach to Validations, was recorded and is therefore available to anyone who is interested and wasn't able to attend in person.

Towards the end of the presentation I listed some resources that exist for ValidateThis!, which is the framework that I created using the approach that I described. Those are:

Riaforge Site (framework and demo code) - validatethis.riaforge.org
Online Demo - www.validatethis.org
Google Group - groups.google.com/group/validatethis

This presentation was very much about why I created VT and how I designed it. It didn't really address questions of how one uses the framework or how to integrate it into an existing application. I have blogged about that extensively in the past, but I also plan on putting together a new presentation addressing those issues, which I hope to present to the meetup group in the future.

I'd like to thank everyone for attending and for all of the wonderful feedback, and I'd also like to thank Charlie Arehart for allowing me to speak and for continuing to operate this amazing resource.