I had the need the other day for a simple horizontal bar graph. I didnt want to mess with a flash based solution so I found some CSS based graphs and decided to create a ColdBox plugin for them so I can use them again later on.
So I wanted to post them here for anyone that might be interested in using them. The CSS is not my work, it was borrowed from here. Lets take a look at what they look like and how easy they are to use shall we?
There's something that has been bugging me for quite some time. I dont mean like a little nagging annoyance, Im talking about an inch long splinter in the bottom of your foot and having to walk around all day on it kind of bugging!
Code formatting. There I said it. Now call me OC or what have you but yes I admit Im quite anal when it comes to code formatting. There is nothing I hate more about coding than to open up someone's code and see poorly formatted code. Is there a reason to try and cram as much crap on one line as humanly possible when coding? What is it about some CF coders that makes them code this way?
I try to make my code as readable as possible. This includes breaking at a reasonable column so as not to run too far off the side of the screen. But why do some people code so that it takes a 30" widescreen monitor to read the whole line?
And whats with code like this:
Im not sure if BlogCFC will wrap that code or not but Im looking at an application right now that has that very code in it, and its all on one line with the exception of the closing table tag. Now is that really necessary?
Isnt this much more readable?
Sorry for ranting but its just been that kind of day!! What are your thoughts on code formatting? Do you see alot of this sort of thing? Are you guilty of it yourself? If so, why? Im really curious.
I have been working with ColdFusion now for just over 10 years. In that time, I have worked with some really great people and on some really great projects. However, I have always worked for someone else. I was never completely happy working as a contractor through an agency, and working a steady gig as a full-time employee had its ups and downs.
My wife has been pushing me for years to go 100% independent and after some lengthy discussions with her, I have finally decided to make the leap. Well, its not so much of a leap as I already have some incredible clients that I have been working with. But nonetheless, its a pretty exciting step for me.
So, I have formed Mad Piranha, Inc as my consultancy and am making a run at it. Actually it was formed quite some time ago, Im just getting around to posting it.
Many thanks to my incredible wife for believing in me so much and supporting this endeavor!
The Jacksonville ColdFusion Users Group (JaxFusion) is starting to get re-organized after some time off. One of the big changes is that the group will expand to not only cover ColdFusion related topics, but also Flex and AIR as well.
Another change will be the meeting location, we are looking for a new location near the Southside somewhere as Downtown was just out of reach for most people in the area after a long day of work. One of the requirements for a meeting location is a projector and preferably a decent internet connection. Since there are quite a few folks in the community now willing to present over Adobe Connect this will ensure some great presentations in the future.
So if you have a suggestion for a location or if you are a Jacksonville business willing to donate some meeting space once a month, please contact David Fekke at david@fekke.com.
With the Jacksonville ColdFusion Group on somewhat of a hiatus (no meeting since August 2007) I decided to head over to the local Ruby on Rails User Group Meeting to see what was the haps in the Jacksonville Ruby community.
First off, let me say that I had no idea there was such an interest in Ruby on Rails right here in Jacksonville. To say the least I was shocked to find out that Obie Fernandez lives here and runs his RoR based consulting business HashRocket from Jacksonville Beach. For those of you not in the know, Obie is to the RoR community what Ben Forta and Ray Camden are to the ColdFusion community.
The meeting had a good turn out, Im not sure of the exact numbers but I would estimate around 20 people showed up. Since they had no formal presentation lined up, they decided to do some pair programming. Basically, taking one or two of the noobs like myself and pairing you up with one of the more experienced guys. For about an hour and 45 minutes I got to sit with an experienced RoR programmer who answered pretty much every stupid question I came up with and even helped me solve several problems in the RoR application Im working on as a learning aide.
Back 7 years or so ago when I was running the Jacksonville ColdFusion Group (Allaire days), we always struggled to get presenters so I ended up doing about 90% of the presentations. I sure wish I would have thought of pair programming back then. Its a great way to get some of the newer folks some personalized attention to help them out.
I suspect that getting presenters nowadays isn't quite as difficult with the introduction of Adobe Connect, but, if for some reason you find your next meeting without a speaker, consider pair programming, I bet you get a great turn-out!
I was talking with Luis the other day about some ColdFusion and framework specific stuff that we would like to see in the upcoming ColdFusion 9. During the conversation Luis pointed something out to me that I hadnt known before. After using ColdFusion for over 10 years, Im almost ashamed to admit that I didnt know this. But then again, I didnt have any OO programming knowledge and other than classic ASP I had no programming experience at all when I started working with ColdFusion.
Strings in ColdFusion are not just Strings. They are actually Java strings. Duh you say? I guess I got so used to CF not being typed that I never really thought about it. So for those as clueless as I am, heres what that means.
A few weeks ago I posted about a mixup with my Amazon wishlist shipping address. Not long after posting that, Mike Potter of Adobe responded saying that he was the one that sent me the copy of the Flex book and that he would get it taken care of for me. Well, I wanted to publicly thank Mike for getting that straightened out for me!
Just having Adobe send me the copy of the Flex 2: Training from the Source book would have been great. However, Mike not only sent a Flex book, but the Essential ActionScript 3 book from Oreilly and a copy of the Total Training Flex 2 DVD!
All of this stuff is really good material! I am tearing through it right now and loving it! So thanks again Mike, hopefully we can catch up at a conference or something and I can buy you a beer!
Also, thanks to those at Adobe who take the time to support the developer community! Makes me proud to be a ColdFusion programmer!
First let me start off by saying that this is purely a rant post. Ranting is not something I usually do on my blog but I feel that this is warranted.
I just took the time to fill out the Adobe ColdFusion surveys that are listed on blogs all over the place today, I got there from here.
Now I may be taking this a bit personally but in the Platform and Vendor Support survey, there is a question about what framework you use. Now, why would you not list all of the major frameworks there? Yes thats right, Im talking about ColdBox. Instead you have an entry for a framework called cfango? What the hell is that? I did a google for cfango and found an actual project page on riaforge for the project but absolutely no info. No wiki, no blog entries, no code.
This really makes me question how in-tune with the community the people who put these surveys together really are. Im not just upset that ColdBox wasnt in the list and this vaporware framework was, I would be just as upset if FuseBox or ModelGlue or Mach-II wasnt listed. Mainly because it just seems like a half-assed question to me if you are going to provide answers that dont even exist.
Normally Im an Adobe fan boy, this just really tweaked me when I saw it. Surely whoever put those surveys together could have done a better job than that!
I have spent most of the day today working on Skweegee trying to finalize the port over to ColdBox. During the port I decided there were quite a few things I wanted to change or update so that has undoubtedly slowed me down. That coupled with the insane amount of time we have been putting in the last couple months trying to wrap up some projects at work.
I hope to spend most of the day Sunday working on it as well in hopes to get a beta out by the end of next week. I will post some screenshots of some of the new screens and features later in the evening Sunday. Its too late to worry with tonight.
Since I have made the switch to using ColdBox, I never get tired of discovering features that are already built into the framework. I find myself so caught up in the framework "just working" that I sometimes forget to look into all of the plugins for features that I could really take advantage of. Luis calls ColdBox "A next generation Framework and Development Toolkit" and I really keep forgetting about the development toolkit part. There are so many built-in tools to help you out with your application that its almost dizzying.
One such plugin that I have found myself using quite often lately is the BeanFactory plugin. This plugin makes working with Transfer extremely easy by automatically populating new beans with data for you among other things. Im not going to go into full detail but I wanted to show an example of populating an empty Transfer object with data and saving that Transfer object back to the database.
A little late on this one, but Nick Tong and some of the guys on the CfOpenSource list have started up a new project to fill a HUGE empty space in the ColdFusion opensource world.
Its too early at this point for any details but several resources have been setup to support the project already. I personally am looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition. The opensource community has been severely missing the boat in this area and I for one am glad that Nick and several others have stepped up to fill that void.
Here are the relevant links and I suggest that anyone interested in this, should participate early on and show support for the project.
Russ Johnson 
