app servers
Setting Up Your Development Server
with ColdFusion 5, MX, and BlueDragon
Browse code in your webroot and serve it via all three app servers just by changing the virtual directory in your URL
he world of ColdFusion application servers is quite interesting at the moment. Macromedias recent update to CFMX 6.1 promises to add a lot of stability
and speed to the product. BlueDragon, New Atlantas alternate CFML runtime engine continues to gain momentum. Yet despite these two great products, much of the development out there is still based on ColdFusion 5 (or earlier). What if youre interested in running one or more of these at once? Perhaps youre going to upgrade an app from one server to another? How do you test your current applications for compatibility among the other servers without reconfiguring your development machine? If youre a consultant, or work for a consulting firm, theres a good chance youll have multiple clients, each with different server requirements. How do you handle the changing requirements without reconfiguring your server every time? The good news is that you can install all three products at once to test them, but they each support slightly different versions of CFML. How do you set things up so that you can test a set of CFML templates against each server, while keeping the CFML code in one place?
This article answers those questions by showing you how to run all the application servers off of a single instance of Microsoft IIS 5 on Windows 2000, and will make it easy to test for cross-compatibility in your code. Normally, if you set up a ColdFusion (or BlueDragon) server to use IIS, it will replace any prior IIS settings for running CFML templates. Well show you how to resolve that. Even if you use Apache, iPlanet, IIS on a Windows Server edition, or some other external Web server, the concepts here will generally apply (though they may be even more flexible). If you already have CF5, CFMX, or BlueDragon installed, just follow along to learn a couple of interesting points to enable setup of IIS to run all three servers at once, pointing to the same directory of CFML code. Its a great way to do testing against all three servers.
Installing/Configuring ColdFusion 5

By Jeffry Houser

The first step is to install and configure ColdFusion 5 on your machine. If you already have it installed and configured to use IIS, you can skip to the next paragraph. ColdFusion 5 can currently be downloaded from the Macromedia Web site, at http://download.macromedia.com/pub/coldfu sion/esd/coldfusion-50-win-us_devrel.exe. It can also be found on your ColdFusion Studio 5 CD or included in Ben Fortas CF5 Web Application Construction Kit book and others. Install it to the default directory, C:\Cfusion. During the install process you should let the installer set itself up for IIS.

By Charlie Arehart

CFDJ SEPTEMBER 2003

ColdFusionJournal.com

You can test the success of your installation by running the ColdFusion Administrator (such as http://localhost/cfide/ administrator/index.cfm) or by creating and running a page using the code below:

<cfoutput> Level: #Server.ColdFusion.ProductLevel#<br> Name #Server.ColdFusion.ProductName#<br> Version #Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion#<br> </cfoutput>
Save the page in your IIS webroot (\inetpub\wwwroot\), perhaps as cfversion.cfm, and load the page in your browser with http://localhost/cfversion.cfm. Youll see that the product version is 5,0,0,0, the name is ColdFusion Server, and the level is either Professional or Enterprise. The install process will create two mappings in IIS, one for cfm pages and one for dbm pages. To see these, open up your Internet Services Manager (found at Start-->Settings->Control Panel-->Administrative Tools), right-click on the Default Web Site, and choose Properties. Click on Home Directory and Configuration. (If the Configuration button is not selectable, close that window and right-click on the computer name above the Default Web Site, choose Properties, choose Edit for the Master Properties of the WWW Service, then choose Home Directory and Configuration.) You should see a cfm extension mapping listed on the app mappings tab, like that shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

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SEPTEMBER 2003 CFDJ
The mapping should point to C:\Cfusion\BIN\ISCF.DLL. Thats the name of CF5s IIS adapter. Were next going to install CFMX and eventually cause it to overwrite this IIS configuration for CF 5, so you should write down the mapping information as youll need it later. Youll also want to make backup copies of the ColdFusion 5 Administrator (cfide) and documentation (cfdocs) directories that were installed by default in the IIS webroot (\inetpub\wwwroot), as they will also be overwritten in a later step. A simple way to do this is by renaming them to cfide5 and cfdocs5. Well show you how to make them accessible again later. Click the add button and youll see the screen shown in Figure 3.
Installing/Configuring ColdFusion MX
Our next step will be to install/configure ColdFusion MX. If you already have it installed and configured to use its built-in Web server, you can skip the next two paragraphs. If you are already configured to use IIS, skip to the next subsection, you are checking the IIS Configuration for CFMX. You can download the latest version of ColdFusion MX from the Macromedia Web site, at www.macromedia.com/ software/coldfusion/trial. ColdFusion MX will install into the CFusionMX directory by default. Just be sure not to install into the same directory as your ColdFusion 5 installation. In fact, the installer will detect that ColdFusion 5 is already installed. Tell it you want it to coexist and install ColdFusion MX using its built-in Web server. You could tell it during the install to implement its IIS connection, but we want the article to help those who may have already installed CFMX with its built-in Web server, who will want to follow the next steps. Once the installation is done, you can confirm that the installation was successful by running the CFMX Administrator. By default, CFMX will set up its built-in Web server at port 8500, so the URL would be http://localhost: 8500/cfide/administrator/index.cfm. Next, or if you had previously installed CFMX using its built-in Web server, we will want to manually set up CFMX to work via IIS. Using Windows Explorer or My Computer, look in the C:\CfusionMX\runtime\lib directory and double click on wsconfig.jar. (In CFMX 6.1, there is also a new menu option, Start-->Programs-->Macromedia-->Macromedia ColdFusion MX-->Web Server Configuration Tool.) The screen shown in Figure 2 will come up.

Figure 3

If you find that you cant launch the JAR file (such as if it tries to open it like a ZIP file), or if it doesnt work for any other reason, look at the CFMX documentation, Installing ColdFusion MX and its section, Configuring Web Servers in Chapter 2. Assuming things are working for you as shown in the figures, select your IIS Web site, click the Configure Web Server for ColdFusion MX Applications button and then click OK. You will be asked to restart the Web server.
Checking the IIS Configuration for CFMX
The ColdFusion MX mappings are now created on IIS. As was described in the CF5 step, open up your Internet Services Manager and bring up properties on the Default Web Site (or the Master Properties, if necessary). Click on Home Directory and Configuration. You should see a bunch of mappings, including cfm and cfc, listed on the app mappings tab, similar to the one shown in Figure 4. Youll also see jsp, jws, and cfml mappings listed. The mappings probably point to C:\CFusionMX\runtime\lib\ wsconfig\1\jrun.dll. Write down this value to use in a later step. Take note, as well, that CFMXs installation of the IIS adapter actually builds the file named in that mapping. Its not enough to skip this step and just use the aforementioned DLL name in the later step. You can run the CF Admin or our test code from above to verify that IIS is now sending pages to ColdFusion MX. In either case, youd no longer want to use the port 8500 on the URL to test against CFMX. Instead, use the same URL you used above to test CF5. The Product Name is still ColdFusion Server, the Product Level should still be Enterprise or

Figure 2

5 mappings from IIS, but dont worry about that for now. Well show you shortly how to reactivate ColdFusion 5 via IIS. Note that the earlier installation of CFMX (using the built-in Web server) installed the CFMX documentation and Administrator in the C:\CFusionMX\wwwroot. If you want to be able to easily access these by way of IIS, you will need to copy the ColdFusion MX Administrator (cfide) and documentation (cfdocs) directories into the IIS Web root C:\inetput\wwwroot. This is why we had you rename those directories when they had been installed with CF5.
Installing/Configuring BlueDragon
Finally, we want to install BlueDragon Server. Even if you dont know about it, theres no harm in installing it. It can run alongside both CF5 and CFMX. In simplest terms its just another server for running your CFML, as you will see. You can learn more about it, including other benefits and features, at www.newatlanta.com/bluedragon/. Installing BlueDragon Server is easy. Its downloadable from the New Atlanta Web site. Get the Server JX version, which like CF is available as a 30-day, full-featured trial that reverts to a single-IP developer edition after that. There is also a Server version, which is free for both development and deployment, without a time limit (though not free for redistribution). It lacks a few features available in the BlueDragon Server JX (and BlueDragon/J2EE) edition, but is much more full-featured than was the previous free edition of ColdFusion from Allaire in the 4.5 timeframe, called CF Express.

Figure 4

Professional (or may now be Standard, in CFMX 6.1). The version should start with 6 and be something like 6,1,0,63239. Again, installing ColdFusion MX has removed your ColdFusion

FUSETALK

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While you can install BlueDragon into its default directory (C:\Program Files\New Atlanta\BlueDragon_Server), for the purposes of this article it may be preferable to install it instead to a C:\Bdragon directory, for reasons explained later. And again, lets install BlueDragon using its built-in Web server, just as you did for ColdFusion MX. If you already installed it in its default directory, dont worry. Well explain this issue later. Its worth noting that like CF, you could instead have installed BlueDragon to integrate with IIS (or other Web servers like Apache and IPlanet). You could also easily add IIS integration after installing it using the BlueDragon Administrator. For the purposes of this article, well instead be manually setting up IIS to connect to BlueDragon. Indeed, well create a special virtual directory for each server in the next section. You can confirm that BlueDragon is working by running its Administrator. Its accessible only by using the BlueDragon builtin Web server, which by default would be available at http://localhost:8080/bluedragon/admin.cfm. (Unlike CF, for security reasons the BlueDragon Administrator is accessible only from the localhost, from the machine on which it was installed. Therefore, even if you had installed it with IIS, or later configured it to use IIS, theres no point in trying to copy the admin to the IIS webroot as we did with CFMX.) You are now ready to start configuring IIS.

Figure 5

4. Now, templates executed with the new /CF5 URL will execute via CF5 instead. You can confirm that your new setup is working by using the URL http://localhost/CF5/ to run some CFML templates in the inetpub\wwwroot. If you followed the recommendation of renaming the CFDOCS directory that had been installed with CF5, the URL would now be http://localhost/cf5/cfdocs5/dochome.htm. The CF5 Administrator would be http://localhost/cf5/cfide5/ administrator/index.cfm. Admittedly, not all the images will work correctly and some links may not work as expected, but at least its better than having lost the CF 5 Admin and docs if wed installed CFMX directly to the IIS webroot and had overwritten them entirely. Now, what about CFMX? Though its already set up to serve docs in the webroot, you may want to create another virtual directory, named CFMX, to parallel what you did for CF5. You can follow steps similar to those above to create a virtual directory named CFMX, using the CFMX version of the IIS DLL mappings we had taken note of earlier. The final step is to create a BD virtual directory. Again, use the same steps above, but in this case the DLL file we want to point the cfm mappings to is located in that BDragon directory we installed it to, at C:\BDragon\bin\isapi\BlueDragon_ Adapter.dll, as shown in Figure 5. Now we can explain why we chose to install BlueDragon to a BDragon directory rather than Program Files\New Atlanta. Its due to a limitation in the IIS Internet Services Manager dialogue weve been using for associating a DLL to an extension mapping. The problem is that it will not accept a directory path containing spaces. This wouldnt be an issue if we were to choose IIS integration at installation of BlueDragon, or if we selected it afterward using

Configure IIS

Lets take stock of what youve done to your machine thus far. ColdFusion 5, ColdFusion MX, and BlueDragon are installed. Only ColdFusion MX is set up to run using IIS. All CFML templates in all directories run though IIS will execute by way of CFMX. BlueDragon will run only in stand-alone mode using its built-in Web server. ColdFusion 5 wont work at all because its mappings were replaced by ColdFusion MX. We now want to accomplish our goal of having everything run off of our single instance of IIS, pointing to the inetpub/webroot. The solution is to create virtual directories for each server that point to the webroot, but run the templates through the desired CFML server. The key is in those extension mappings that we referred to before. In fact, we can create different virtual directories that each use a different mapping for CFML templates. You can do this from the Internet Services Manager. Follow these instructions: 1. Right-click on the Default Web Site and select Virtual Directory from the New menu. 2. Name the first virtual directory something like CF5. When asked to enter the path containing the Web content, use the available Browse button to point to inetpub\wwwroot. Now the virtual directory is created. 3. Bring up that new virtual directorys properties by rightclicking it and selecting Properties. Click on the Configuration button on the virtual directory tab. It will probably have inherited mappings (for the.cfm and.cfml extensions) that point to the ColdFusion MX IIS DLL, because CFMX was configured to use IIS integration in that previous CFMX install step. We will want to override this mapping. Change the cfm and cfml mappings to point to C:\Cfusion\BIN\ISCF.DLL, the value you wrote down earlier in this article during the CF5 setup.
the BlueDragon Administrator. In those cases, BlueDragon uses a programmatic API to set the extension mapping and the path to its DLL, where the spaces dont matter. If youve already installed BlueDragon and want to try this manual approach to setting up a new virtual directory, and you dont want to reinstall BlueDragon, you can still point to your existing directory here. Youll just have to convert the path to the Windows 8.3 format. On our test machine, that path name would be C:\Progra~1\NewAtl~1\BlueDr~1\ bin\isapi\BlueDragon_Adapter.dll. This will vary on your machine depending on other directories you may have in the Program Files or New Atlanta directories. If youre comfortable using the DOS command line, you can determine the 8.3 name for a given path using the DIR commands /X switch. Finally, note that unlike CFMX, we did not need to install the IIS adapter in order to use that BlueDragon_Adapter.dll. As in CF5, its simply placed there automatically during the install process along with all the other external Web server adapters.

to point to the IIS webroot, you could just as easily create three sets of virtual directories to point to another content directory outside the webroot. Maybe someone out there would like to take this concept and extend it to offer similar instructions for doing this in Apache, iPlanet, or IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003. Again, the concepts are similar, and sometimes even easier on those Web servers. In any case, for those on IIS, jumping between projects, clients, and application servers just became much easier.

About the Authors

Jeffry Houser has been working with computers for over 20 years and has been working in Web development for over 8 years. He owns a consulting company based in Connecticut, and has authored three separate books on ColdFusion, most recently ColdFusion MX: The Complete Reference (McGrawHill Osborne Media). jeff@instantcoldfusion.com Charlie Arehart is co-technical editor of ColdFusion Developers Journal and a Macromedia Certified Advanced ColdFusion developer and trainer. He has recently become CTO of New Atlanta Communications, makers of BlueDragon. In his new role, he will continue to support the CFML community, contributing to several CF resources, and speaking frequently at user groups throughout the country. charlie@newatlanta.com

Conclusion

Now you can browse code in your webroot and serve it via all three application servers just by changing the virtual directory in your URL. Localhost/cf5 will send code to the ColdFusion 5 server. localhost/cfmx will send code to the ColdFusion MX server. localhost/bd will send code to the BlueDragon server. And notice that while weve created the virtual directories

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Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen
ApDev / Optimizing ColdFusion 5 / Cortes / 9304-2 /

APPENDIX

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ApDev / Optimizing ColdFusion 5 / Cortes / 9304-2 / Appendix A

Optimizing ColdFusion 5

ou are reading an online chapter for Optimizing ColdFusion 5 by Chris Cortes (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001). This online chapter is intended to supplement the printed text and provide valuable additional material to its readers. Optimizing ColdFusion 5 was designed to give ColdFusion architects and developers the tools necessary for improving many core aspects of their ColdFusion applications. For more information about this ColdFusion text and others visit www.optimizingcoldfusion.com or www.osborne.com.
Using ColdFusion Studios Online Documentation
Both ColdFusion Application Server and ColdFusion Studio ship with a great deal of useful information and online documentation. Although the ColdFusion online reference material is a little dry and sometimes difficult to read, for those who dislike reading from a computer screen, these online documents cover many of the issues that developers stumble upon in their day-to-day development.
ColdFusion Application Server Reference Material
ColdFusion Application Servers documentation, as seen in Figure A-1, can be found at 127.0.0.1/cfdocs/dochome.htm on any machine with ColdFusion Application Server installed on it. The ColdFusion server documentation can also be reached from the Product Documentation link on the main page of the ColdFusion Administrator.
Security, Online Documentation, and Sample Applications
Remember that Macromedia recommends the removal of all documentation and sample applications from production servers because security has been breeched through these tools in the past. The House of Fusion, which is a very good ColdFusion web site, contains an interesting article about this security issue. The article can be found at www.houseoffusion.com/hof/security/ diary.htm. This article gives a detailed account of how hackers abused the ColdFusion sample applications, which enabled them to penetrate ColdFusion Application Server and deface a ColdFusion web site. You can find information about ColdFusion security at www.allaire.com/developer/securityzone/.
AppDev / Optimizing ColdFusion 5 / Cortes / 9304-2 / Appendix A

Appendix A

Figure A-1
ColdFusion Application Servers online reference material
ColdFusion Application Server Documentation
The following are the online books that are included with the ColdFusion server documentation: Installing and Configuring ColdFusion Server This book, of course, contains information regarding installing and configuring your ColdFusion Application Server on multiple platforms. Advanced ColdFusion Administration This advanced administration book includes information on data source management, security, Verity, and ColdFusion Server clustering.
Developing ColdFusion Applications This book is a general reference book containing many different application development topics. CFML Reference The CFML reference contains syntax, usage, and information about creating and using CFML tags and functions.
ColdFusion Administrator Help
A newly improved feature of the ColdFusion Administrator is the addition of a very intuitive help wizard, which can be launched from a link at the top-right corner of ColdFusion Administrators pages, as seen in Figure A-2. Too bad the help wizard isnt a little lightning bolt that pops up and smiles or winks at us, right? I am just kidding, but the new help reference is a great addition to the ColdFusion Administrator.

Figure A-2

Launching the ColdFusion Administrator help wizard
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Similar in functionality to other help systems such as MS Offices help, the ColdFusion administrator help wizard automatically opens with relevant help information to the page where the help wizard was activated, as seen in Figure A-3. In Figure A-3, you can see that the help window shows information regarding ColdFusion Administrators Server settings because Server Settings is the section where help was requested.
ColdFusion Studio Reference Material
ColdFusion Studio has some excellent reference tools that enable developers to quickly look up technical and programmatic information about ColdFusion Studio, ColdFusion server, CFML, and many other relevant web application development topics. These tools are searchable reference materials and tag keyword help. The help references that are available within ColdFusion Studio will vary slightly, depending on the extra features that you may have installed on your system. For

Figure A-3

The ColdFusion Administrator help window that is associated with ColdFusion server settings
example, if you have installed Macromedia Spectra or the WDDX Software Development Kit (SDK) on your system, then chances are that you will also have reference material relevant to those topics available in your ColdFusion Studio help, whereas users with only a standard ColdFusion Studio installation will not. Tag and function keyword help is triggered by pressing F1 while the cursor is positioned over a tag or function in the ColdFusion Studio editor. This feature helps developers to quickly find information on CFML syntax and usage.
ColdFusion Studio Online Documentation
Typically, ColdFusion Studio will have the same documentation that ColdFusion Administrator has but with the addition of some ColdFusion Studio specific topics such as Using ColdFusion Studio Customizing the Development Environment Scripting the Visual Tools Object Model HTML Reference Wireless Development Reference
Because this book was written during the first beta release of ColdFusion Studio 5, I cannot be sure that all of the preceding topics will be part of the final ColdFusion Studio 5 documentation list.
Getting Tag and Function Help in ColdFusion Studio
As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, ColdFusion Studio is very efficient at returning comprehensive tag and function help. Figure A-4 shows what you get for the CFOUTPUT tag by pressing F1 while your editors cursor is positioned over a tag or function. Also, pressing F2 while your editors cursor is positioned over a tag or function will provide basic tag or function syntax, as seen in Figure A-5 for the CFOUTPUT tag.

Appendix A:

Figure A-4
Using the F1 key to get comprehensive information about a tag or function
Purchasing Hard Copies of ColdFusion Documentation
As well as providing soft copies of ColdFusion documentation with ColdFusion software, Macromedia also prints hard copies of the ColdFusion Studio and ColdFusion Application Server documents. I always purchase an extra set of documents so that I can keep one set in my office and one set at work. Documentation for ColdFusion products and other Macromedia products can be purchase at www.macromedia.com/store. At the time this book was written, the price for ColdFusion Studio and ColdFusion Application Server documents were $50 USD each.
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What Do You Do if Your Online Documentation Becomes Unsearchable?
Occasionally, I come across a ColdFusion Studio developer who is unable to access the search features that are incorporated into the ColdFusion Studio documentation. The reason that this problem occurs is that ColdFusion Studio maintains its own Verity collection that it uses to run searches against the documentation, and sometimes those collections become damaged. If the ColdFusion Studios Verity collection becomes corrupted or damaged, then the search features in ColdFusion Studio will no longer function properly. To correct the problem of a malfunctioning ColdFusion Studio Verity collection, you must either repair or delete that Verity collection. When given the opportunity, I always choose deleting and recreating Verity collections over repairing or optimizing them. I figure that a collection will never be more optimized than after it has been recently created. The default location of the ColdFusion Studio Verity collection can be found at
c:\program files\Allaire\ColdFusion Studio 4x\Verity\collections
c:\program files\Macromedia\ColdFusion Studio 5x\Verity\collections
Before attempting to modify your Verity collections, as demonstrated in the following procedure, make sure that you close any running instances of ColdFusion Studio, as you may not be able to accomplish the prescribed task if ColdFusion Studio is running. After browsing to the location appropriate for your ColdFusion Studio version, you should see a directory named Searchable Help; rename that directory. By renaming that directory, ColdFusion Studio will no longer be capable of finding that Verity collection, will assume that it doesnt exist, and will regenerate the collection the next time you attempt to search the ColdFusion Studio documentation. You should now be able to search your ColdFusion documentation again.

Figure A-5

Using the F2 key to return basic tag or function syntax in a pop-up box
When I purchased my last set of ColdFusion documents, I got something that was called Quick Reference Guide to CFML. This concise 30+ page booklet is packed with reference material such as The CFML tag set The CFML functions set The ColdFusion variable scopes and their persistent variables ColdFusion tag specific variables such as CFCATCH and others A listing of standard CGI variables ColdFusion Studio keyboard short cuts The Quick Reference Guide to CFML is a great tool that will help optimize your time spent looking for tag syntax and attributes. I would pay $50 for the set of documents alone, without this handy reference, but with this quick pocket-sized guide, I think the package is a relative bargain.
The ColdFusion Internet Community

One of the reasons that ColdFusion is so successful is because the ColdFusion community, in general, is very cooperative. Not only does Macromedia devote its own resources toward driving community unity, but some very active organizations and companies also support the ColdFusion community. The following five sections cover the ColdFusion web sites that I find the most helpful in producing effective results and helping developers maximize their ability to produce top-quality web applications.

House of Fusion

The House of Fusion is located at www.houseoffusion.com and is one of the leading sites in the ColdFusion community. Run by Michael Dinowitz, famous ColdFusion developer and coauthor of the Advanced ColdFusion 4 Application Development Kit (QUE 1999), the House of Fusion is responsible for bringing thousands of ColdFusion developers together every day in an effort to help developers worldwide. If you are not familiar with the House of Fusion, I suggest that you visit it right now and begin participating in what are termed The Lists. House of Fusion hosts several e-mail lists devoted to supporting developers who use Macromedia tools in their daily tasks. Each list will generate between a dozen and a few hundred messages per day, depending on the topic. Developers post questions and responses relevant to multiple topics twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The e-mail lists that are hosted at House of Fusion and the subjects that are covered are listed in Table A-1. List Name

CF-Talk

List Subject Matter
General discussion about CFML and developing ColdFusion applications. This is the most popular of the lists, and sometimes hundreds of messages are posted per day. Macromedia and many ColdFusion experts frequently contribute to this list and observe community sentiment and concerns. This list contains general discussion about ColdFusion Application Server.

CF-Server Table A-1

Mailing lists hosted at houseoffusion.com

List Name

CF-Community CF-Partners
This list is for general ColdFusion discussions not covered specifically by other ColdFusion based lists. This list is specifically designed for Macromedia partners to collaborate and discuss issues that effect and impact the Macromedia partner community. This is a list to discuss general CFX topics. This list is specially targeted at Macromedia Spectra developers. Macromedia and Spectra experts frequently contribute to this list and observe community sentiment and concerns. This list is for general discussion that covers Homesite and ColdFusion Studio products. This list is for general discussion on topics covering SQL. This list is specifically targeted at JRUN developers. Macromedia and JRUN experts frequently contribute to this list and observe community sentiment and concerns. This is a list specifically targeted at JSP developers. This list generally encompasses Fusebox development methodology and is intended to support developers who build sites using Fusebox. This list is for general discussions by the Fusebox community that are not directly related to application development. This list is for employers posting job announcements and developers posting availability announcements. This list is for ColdFusion developers to discuss topics directly related to building ColdFusion applications on the Linux platform. This list is for developers who use the WDDX language to extend their web applications. This list is for ColdFusion developers to discuss WAP topics and their relationship with developing WAP-enabled ColdFusion applications. This list is for the discussion of the price of Macromedia stock. This list is for the discussion of topics directly related to the New York ColdFusion Users Group (NYCFUG).

CFX Spectra-Talk

Homesite/Studio SQL JRUN-Talk
JSP-Talk Fusebox Fusebox-Community CF-Jobs CF-Linux WDDX-Talk CF-WAP
CF-Stock NYCFUG Table A-2
Mailing lists hosted at houseoffusion.com (continued)
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I recently spoke with Michael Dinowitz about The Lists, and he had some very interesting remarks regarding the ColdFusion community and the reason for the apparent success that House of Fusion has had in supporting it. I asked Michael, Why do you think that The Lists have been so successful, and how do you think that they have impacted the ColdFusion community? This is how Michael responded: The HoF lists are as powerful as they are because its for the community and by the community. The people who post are, in most cases, asking questions that we all have asked or havent even thought of asking yet. The people who respond are those who are in the trenches and using the product every day. We realize that, in the end, all we have is each other, and we strive to help out. It is this spirit of community that has helped push ColdFusion into the position it is in today. Ive seen many products that were similar to ColdFusion die by the wayside because they lacked the community that ColdFusion has. I definitely agree with Michael, and I place the House of Fusion at the top of my list for web sites that enable active ColdFusion developers to overcome daily obstacles.
Although Macromedia takes an active interest in list discussions, The HoF Lists are officially supported, managed, and monitored solely by the House of Fusion.

Allaire Tag Gallery

The Allaire tag gallery is located at devex.allaire.com/developer/gallery/. Macromedia, of course, maintains the tag gallery, which is also known as the developers exchange. The Allaire tag gallery is devoted to providing developers who use Macromedia products with a place to share their creations, and it contains the single largest collection of ColdFusion custom tags. There are literally thousands of useful custom tags available for developers to download, most of which are free of charge. The Allaire tag gallery supports the spirit of optimization by providing a super resource that is all about code reuse and community cooperation.

Allaire Knowledge Base

The Allaire knowledge base is located at www.Allaire.com/knowledgebase. If you are accustomed to building ColdFusion applications in diverse environments, as consultants are, then the Allaire knowledge base is an excellent
tool for quickly getting masses of information on a wide variety of topics. In the Allaire knowledge base, you can find a wealth of information that Allaire has organized into a searchable index. The knowledge base is the first place I go to when I am unable to get answers from the CF-Talk list. Not only is the information in the knowledge base well categorized, but it is also well written. The knowledge base articles are usually in a format similar to short white papers, but they are sometimes written as well-produced, highly detailed articles.

Allaire Columns and Articles
The Allaire columns and articles are located at allaire.com/developer/technologyreference/columnsarticlesarchive.cfm. Allaire makes it a practice to regularly publish articles covering new ideas and topics of interest to the ColdFusion community. Developers and engineers working for Macromedia write many of these articles, but some of the articles published on the Allaire site are submitted by developers working independently of Macromedia. Topics in the columns and articles section of the Allaire site range from XML to WAP to advanced ColdFusion concepts. When I feel like being challenged, this is one of the first sites that I visit. Overall, this is one of the best web sites that ColdFusion developers can go to.

Fusebox.org

Fusebox.org is of course located at www.fusebox.org. Fusebox is perhaps the most widely accepted methodology that ColdFusion developers use today; moreover, the fusebox.org web site offers an impressive collection of Fusebox and ColdFusion techniques that are invaluable to ColdFusion developers. Even if you are a developer who does not use the Fusebox methodology to create your applications, visiting fusebox.org and reading through the content available there can help you develop stronger, more efficient applications. Fusebox.org has done a tremendous job in furthering ColdFusion architecture and optimizing the stability of ColdFusion applications that use Fusebox.

Recommended Reading

It is always my pleasure to hear other developers and consultants talk about the reading material that has influenced their programming habits and abilities. I have dozens of books and periodicals that I would like to share with you and talk about,
but instead of sharing all of them with you, I will share the ones that have most influenced my ColdFusion and application development experiences.
ColdFusion Developers Journal
ColdFusion Developers Journal is available from Sys-Con Media at www.sys-con.com/coldfusion/. ColdFusion Developers Journal is the major ColdFusion periodical. It is supported by top names in the ColdFusion industry, such as Ben Forta, who has a regular article in the journal. This magazine consistently prints interesting and valuable articles specifically geared for the ColdFusion community, and it contains a wide range of content for the expert to the novice.
ColdFusion Books by Osborne
At the time that this book was written, three other very exciting texts that are all about ColdFusion and are published by Osborne/McGraw-Hill were hitting the shelves. It is encouraging to see all of the effort that a single publishing company is putting behind the ColdFusion product line. Until recently, there have been a scant handful of ColdFusion texts produced by all publishers combined, and most of them have been complete references. Finally, because of Osborne/McGraw-Hill, there are a wide variety of texts for the ColdFusion community to choose from.

The ColdFusion Developers Reference
The ColdFusion 5 Developers Guide, by Michael Buffington (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001), is a complete desk reference that covers the entire ColdFusion language from the simplest tags to the most complex functions; a must have for all ColdFusion developers.

Instant ColdFusion

Instant ColdFusion 5, by Jeffry Houser (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001), has a classic cookbook approach to ColdFusion and is designed specially for developers who like to learn by example and get their hands dirty while learning. This text comes with a CD-ROM containing all of the examples used to develop the applications in the book. Visit instantcoldfusion.com for more information.

ColdFusion for Beginners

ColdFusion 5: A Beginners Guide, by Jeffry Houser (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001), provides a great introduction to ColdFusion, and enables developers, new to ColdFusion, to deploy dynamic web sites.

Books on SQL

One of the largest potential bottlenecks of any data-driven application is the database. In order to minimize the risk of a database that cant keep up with your application server, you need to become a well rounded web developer who knows more about SQL than select, insert, update, and delete. The following texts are all great books in which the content can be easily adapted or related to common tasks that web developers must address on a regular basis.

SQL for Smarties

SQL for Smarties, by Joe Celko (Morgan Kaufman Publishers, 1999), is arguably one of the best texts written about the SQL language. This book is a must for programmers who work with databases, as the text opens up a vast majority of the SQL language not typically taught to developers. I credit the advanced SQL knowledge that I have to Joe Celko and SQL for Smarties.
The Gurus Guide to Transact-SQL
The Gurus Guide to Transact-SQL, by Ken Henderson (Addison-Wesley, 2000), is an excellent text that covers the advanced topics that are sometimes needed by ColdFusion developers working with Microsoft SQL Server. If you need to write complex Transact SQL (T-SQL) store procedures for SQL Server, then this may be the book for you.
SQL Queries for Mere Mortals
SQL Queries for Mere Mortals, by Michael J. Hernandez and John L. Viescas (Addison-Wesley, 2000), is another great source for advanced SQL theory. I find the topics that are covered in this book practical and easy to adapt to the types of processes that we must handle in web development. This book comes with a CD containing the databases that were used to write the SQL contained in the book, which makes the quizzes at the end of each chapter fun to try.
P:\010Comp\ApDev\304-2\appaweb.vp Thursday, August 30, 2001 12:14:00 PM

Application Architecture

I think that part of optimizing your web applications means that you must be able to look at a project from the outside in and quickly assess problems. Part of leading successful engagements means that you can build an application conceptually before you ever write a line of code, define a plan of action, or spot a rolling snow ball before it becomes a giant boulder of ice. The following books address these issues and more, and will help you optimize the planning and management of your ColdFusion applications.

UML Distilled

UML Distilled, by Martin Fowler with Kendall Scott (Addison-Wesley, 1999), is a very interesting book that covers the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in detail and in plain English. I first became interested in object design when I began developing Spectra applications, and I was advised by Ben Elmore to read this book. Although this is a relatively short text, after reading UML Distilled, my grasp of UML and developing good object and logical models greatly matured.

Software Requirements

Software Requirements, by Karl E. Wiegers (Microsoft Press, 1999), despite some of the mild criticisms seen on Amazon.com, I find the procedures laid out in this book to be more than adequate for web development. This text helped me understand the differences between gathering requirements for a development team and gathering requirements for myself. A must read for web architects and ColdFusion developers doubly tasked with playing architect.
Debugging the Development Process
Debugging the Development Process, by Steve Maguire (Microsoft Press, 1999), is a book that I originally read quite some time ago, but always find myself running back to. This is a great book that discusses the application development process. For me, this book read like a novel, but that is because I am a nerd; the information that Maguire shares with the reader jumped off the page and spoke to me. This author has been through it all, and he shares his experience on building successful applications in a way that I found adaptable to web development.