Bob's Blog - ColdFusion Tidbits - Presentations

Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects - CFUnited Slide Deck Available

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:19:00 -0400

As promised, the slide deck from my presentation at CFUnited about ValidateThis, a validation framework for ColdFusion, is now available. Download it in PDF format here. Here's a description of the session:

Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects

This session will provide an overview of, as well as a detailed how-to about a Validation framework for ColdFusion. The title is a slight misnomer, as, although the framework was originally written to work inside an object-oriented application, and remains an ideal solution for that, it has recently been enhanced to work with simple ColdFusion structures as well. This means that anyone who is looking for a better way of addressing their validation requirements, both on the client side and on the server side, can now benefit from the framework, even if they are not using objects.

The main benefit of the framework is that it will automatically generate all of your client-side and server-side validations for you, from a simple set of metadata. This frees you from the drudgery of writing similar validation code over and over again, and also eliminates the possibility of adding bugs into your application via your validation code. The framework, called ValidateThis, is being actively developed by myself and a number of other contributors, so not only is it extremely functional and flexible right now, but new features are being added continually. If you are interested in finding out more about it, including exactly how to implement it in a new or existing application (and it's dead easy), I encourage you to take a look at the material.

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.

Join me at CFUnited and Get a Discount, Now

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:04:00 -0400

I'm delighted to announce (quite late, I might add) that one of my topics has been chosen to be presented at CFUnited 2010 in July. I'll be speaking on Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects, which I summarized to the committee as:

Are you confused about where to put the validation logic in your object oriented application? Are you tired of writing one set of validations for the server side and another set for the client side? Are you looking for a way to encapsulate your validation logic, so your business objects do not have to change each time your validation rules change? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this is the session for you. In this session you will learn about an open source project that delivers all of the above, and is easy to integrate into any project. You define your business rules in a simple XML file and the framework will automagically perform all of your server side validations and generate all of your client side validations. What's more, the framework is flexible and extensible enough to allow you to define an unlimited number of custom validation types and messages, all without touching any of the framework's or your own code. You'll leave the session with an understanding of what the framework can do for you, as well as how to implement it into a new or existing application. This framework is meant to be used in an application that makes use of objects. This would include ones that use Transfer, Reactor, hand-coded beans/DAOs, and, of course, ColdFusion 9's ORM.

If you're thinking about attending, you might want to register this week, as the Early Bird pricing ends this Friday.

I look forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at the conference, and hope to meet some new folks as well. Perhaps I'll see you there?

Presenting Getting Started with ColdFusion 9's ORM Integration to the Online ColdFusion Meetup

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:36:00 -0400

Just a quick note to announce that I'm going to be presenting my session, Getting Started with ColdFusion 9's ORM Integration from the CFinNC Conference to the Online ColdFusion Meetup next Thursday, November 19th, at 6:00pm EDT. Details can be found at the Meetup site. You can attend the presentation via Connect on Thursday, but if you can't make it the session will also be recorded and made available.

Here's a description of the session:

We've all heard the buzz about CF9's ORM integration, but exactly what is it, and how can I use it? This session will demystify the idea of ORM by introducing the concepts that you need to know to get started using it right away. Not an object oriented developer? No problem! As long as you know what an object is, and a little bit about cfcs, this session will help you get past the buzzwords and be productive with ORM on your next project.

Hope to see some of you there.

Advanced Techniques with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration - Slides Available

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:02:00 -0400

The slides, which include all of the sample code from my CFinNC presentation, Advanced Techniques with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration, are now available. Click on the link below to download them. I developed these slides using Keynote, and attempted to save them as a PowerPoint presentation, but ended up with slides that looked like crap, so I saved them as a PDF for the download. The slides look good, but the file is big. Sorry about that.

If anyone is interested in having me deliver this presentation to a ColdFusion User Group via connect please feel free to leave me a comment, or send me an email.

Attachments:

Advanced Techniques with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration Slide Deck - in PDF Format (11 MB)

Here is the description of the presentation:

The ColdFusion engineering team have made it very easy to make use of Hibernate's ORM features out of the box, but what if you want to do something a bit more complicated? In this session we'll cover items that will be of interest to those wanting to take CF and Hibernate to the next level. Topics will include Hibernate session management, Working with detached objects, Concurrency, Event handling, and Creating a base persistent object.

Getting Started with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration - Slides Available

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:55:00 -0400

The slides, which include all of the sample code from my CFinNC presentation, Getting Started with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration, are now available. Click on the link below to download them. I developed these slides using Keynote, and attempted to save them as a PowerPoint presentation, but ended up with slides that looked like crap, so I saved them as a PDF for the download. The slides look good, but the file is big. Sorry about that.

If anyone is interested in having me deliver this presentation to a ColdFusion User Group via connect please feel free to leave me a comment, or send me an email.

Attachments:

Getting Started with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration Slide Deck - in PDF Format (5 MB)

Here is the description of the presentation:

We've all heard the buzz about CF9 ORM integration, but exactly what is it, and how can I use it? This session will demystify the idea of ORM by introducing the concepts that you need to know to get started using it right away. Not an object oriented developer? No problem! As long as you know what an object is, and a little bit about cfcs, this session will help you get past the buzzwords and be productive with Hibernate on your next project. Use Hibernate currently, but not CF? Great! Come and see how the ColdFusion engineering team have made it super simple to use Hibernate, without losing any of the flexibility you're accustomed to.

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.

Presenting An Object Oriented Approach to Validations to the Online ColdFusion Meetup

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:43:00 -0400

Just a quick note to announce that I'm going to be presenting my session from cf.Objective() to the Online ColdFusion Meetup this Thursday, June 18th, at 6:00pm EDT.

Details can be found at the Meetup site. You can attend the presentation via Connect on Thursday. The session will be recorded and made available.

Here is the abstract for the presentation:

Performing validations on user input is something that all of us, as application developers, must do. When moving from a procedural to an object oriented approach many developers have difficulty determining how and where to perform validations. In this session you will be introduced to an object oriented approach to validations. This approach enables you to add validation "smarts" into your business objects, while keeping that logic fully encapsulated outside of the objects, meaning that any changes to your validation rules and/or logic will have zero impact on the rest of your model. We'll look at the individual objects that comprise this approach, and understand how they work together to automatically perform server-side and generate client-side validations using metadata from a simple xml file. You will leave the session with a better understanding of how to design using objects, as well as a tool that will greatly simplify the task of adding validations to your object oriented application.

This session is aimed at intermediate to advanced developers who are familiar with object oriented concepts and are interested in learning about how to incorporate validations into their objects, as well as object oriented design in general.

Hope to see some of you there.

Building An Object Oriented Model - Recording and Sample Code Available

Sun, 31 May 2009 16:14:00 -0400

I'm happy to announce that the presentation that I delivered to the Online ColdFusion Meetup last Thursday night, entitled Building an Object Oriented Model, was recorded and is therefore available to anyone who is interested and wasn't able to attend in person. Don't be put off by the fact that the recording is 90 minutes long - the presentation is only 60 minutes, and is followed by a 30 minute Q and A session.

A few people asked about the sample code that I presented. It can be downloaded directly from this post.

Also note that I have written a number of posts on these topics, so anyone looking for more information can check out the OO Design category of this blog.

Finally, I will be presenting my other cf.Objective() presentation, An Object Oriented Approach to Validations at an Online ColdFusion Meetup session in the near future, date and time TBA.

Presenting Building An Object Oriented Model to the Online ColdFusion Meetup

Tue, 26 May 2009 10:41:00 -0400

Update: A recording of this presentation, as delivered to the Online ColdFusion Meetup is available via this blog post.

Just a quick note to announce that I'm going to be presenting my session from cf.Objective() to the Online ColdFusion Meetup this Thursday, May 28th, at 6:00pm EDT.

Details can be found at the Meetup site. You can attend the presentation via Connect on Thursday. The session will be recorded and made available.

Here is the abstract for the presentation:

When making the move from a procedural to an object oriented approach one often comes across a pattern that involves using services and gateways to act as a middle man between a controller and your actual business objects. This session will present an approach to implementing a common set of services and gateways. Through the use of abstract classes you will see how to eliminate duplicate code and how to encapsulate logic to increase the cohesiveness of your entire model. We will start with the basics, describing what services and gateways are, and then look at building a model from the ground up. You'll leave the session with an understanding of the components that go into building a model, as well as some of the object oriented principles that will help guide you in your design efforts.

This session is aimed at beginning to intermediate developers who have some experience with and knowledge of basic OO concepts and are interested in learning about some of the design considerations that go into building an OO model.

Hope to see some of you there.