Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 15, 2008 11:14 AM

Tomorrow Oct 16th, Tom Chiverton will present Intermediate ColdSpring - Remote CFCs to the online ColdFusion Meetup at 2 PM Est. Many people enjoyed my ColdSpring presentation and expressed interest in learning more about ColdSpring. Your wishes have been granted.

As the trend in development grows to include more SOA and/or Rich Client applications, we all seek to leverage our current codebases efficiently to deliver maximum value for our business units and customers. Using the ColdSpring framework to expose services is one key tool in the tool chest and should be a part of all advanced developers skillset. Tom's presentation tomorrow will hit several key areas and also provide a good base for those who want a more in-depth knowledge of ColdSpring and who also want to add Remote Access to their applications. Here is the published description from the man himself:

When exposing ColdSpring beans as remote (web, AJAX, AMF etc.) services there are several common problems that need to be solved. In this presentation, we'll discuss some of the problems and the ways ColdSpring can address these.

We will use a RemoteFactoryBean to generate a remote façade automatically, and then see how Pointcuts can automatically apply Before and Around Advice to this façade. We will see how these two powerful techniques simplify development and maintenance, by showing practical examples of both types of Advice.

If you are using ColdSpring already for Dependancy Injection, these techniques are a next step.

Tom Chiverton is an active blogger and has been a vocal contributor on several mailing lists. (He is also known for his rotating email signatures :) ) It is clear he knows his stuff. Be there tomorrow at 2PM EST, or Be Square!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     August 6, 2008 8:36 AM

I read a lot of technical blogs because I benefit in knowing more about the thoughts and positions of others. Whether I agree with them, or disagree, the thought process is something that helps me sharpen my technical skills.

So it is of great anticipation that a new blog, The Argument Collection, just had her maiden voyage.

Consisting of some of the more thought provoking minds on the CF landscape, this blog promises to deliver timely information on how to solve problems. Sean, Ray, Joe, Brian and Nicolas all are accomplished programmers, thinkers and have great ability to convey highly technical matters in ways that simple minds like me can grasp the concepts.

I've added The Argument Collection blog to my feed reader, you should as well.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     July 9, 2008 11:53 AM

I am going to be giving a presentation to The Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group entitled Fun with ColdSpring.

This is the description I am shopping around:

This month Dan Wilson presents on Fun with ColdSpring. ColdSpring is a wonderful framework used when working with CFC based applications. Using ColdSpring effectively reduces the complexity of CC based applications, saves time, makes applications easier to understand and adds a nice tool to the Rapid Development toolkit. Come see what all the fuss is about.

My plan is to show practical examples of how to use ColdSpring in OO applications. I would like some ideas on the sort of stuff I should cover.

So, if you haven't used ColdSpring before and you have questions, please leave a comment and tell me what you would like covered.

If you use ColdSpring some, and you want to know about certain features, please add them in the comments below.

If you are an expert ColdSpring user and you have something fancy that you feel should be definitely covered, please leave a comment.

ColdSpring is a wonderful framework and the topic area is quite broad. I'd like to talk about the things people are most curious about..... your input is appreciated.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     December 27, 2007 1:15 PM

Reading the always informative blog at http://flexblog.faratasystems.com, I came across a thought provoking paragraph that bears repeating. ( http://flexblog.faratasystems.com/?p=280 ) If you answer the question "How?" first, people tend not to ask "Why?" for quite some time. On the flip side, you will have people doing their parts rather quickly thus producing enormous amount of code to fix when the design problems become evident. The problem with formal coding techniques is the human generated code (thus cut/paste errors) without the ultimate understanding how it will be used and very little testing done while writing the code.

[More]

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     November 23, 2007 12:28 PM

The Lenovo x61s is one of the best Ultra Portable laptops on the market. I have confidence in Lenovo quality and would purchase this laptop without hesitation, were it not $11,000.

I propose Lenovo mail me a well equipped x60s and I'll perform a fair review and post it here. If I were to spend such a significant amount of money on a laptop, I would expect it to preserve my data after a Car Crash. I would also expect it to function in the weightless environment found during an Alien Abduction. (I've got to get the pics on Flickr or no one would believe me.)

Thankfully, Lenovo posted such videos of laptop tests in car crashes (very cool when the laptop hits the wall and flexes), water tanks (a bit hokey) and weightless environments (plain awesome). You can view the videos on Lenovo Vision.

Here are some other reasons why I like Lenovo

• Offers XP in addition to Vista
• Linux Friendly
• Has large office in RTP, North Carolina
• Legendary Reliability
• Laptop keyboard designed to withstand accidental liquid spillage up to 60cc
• Has super-sweet Ultra Portable line. (x60 and x60s)

I need to purchase an Ultra Portable this year. I hoped Apple would release their new hardware in time. It looks like they won't. Stay tuned for any sweet deals on Lenovo!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     November 6, 2007 12:03 PM

I often listen carefully to Chris Scott, one of the authors of ColdSpring. He has a keen mind for Application Architecture and Object Oriented Programming. Recently, while responding to a post on the ColdSpring-Dev list, he made a point that bears repeating. Rather than rephrase, I'd like to quote him directly:

There are tons of developers out there working on small teams that really don't need to be going crazy trying to protect their code against themselves. Larger projects, larger teams may very well set different standards[...]
-Chris Scott

So often, the 'right answer' depends on all the elements in the equation. Architecture decisions are about effectively managing trade offs. The 'right' answer could be Extensibility over Simplicity, Performance over Maintainability, Clarity over Convenience.

A shop with 4 developers delivering lots of little projects has quite different needs over an enterprise with 50 developers supporting years of mission critical code. The cost of a mistake are not equal. The contributions of an individual is not equal. The measure of success is not equal. The 'right answer' is also not equal.

It is up to you, developers and architects to constantly educate yourself on technologies and standards. Be mindful of your environment. Challenge your viewpoints. Ask questions.

As for the 'right answer' I'll quote the ever wise Mr. Corfield, "It Depends".

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