Not a huge amount to report. This release simply re-orders some of the class loading, so it is child first.
This
is important in case you load up a newer (or older) version of a
library that ColdFusion already has access to, and you want to make
sure you get the library you want, not the library loaded by ColdFusion.
That and I fixed a bug in the JavaProxy.cfc that was sent to me a loooong time ago, that will fix an issue with resolving overloaded Java Methods.
JavaLoader can be downloaded from
here.
All,
Another CFUG on the way!
(Apologies for the delay in getting this out, I was in the US!)
Location:
NGA.net, Level 2, 17 Raglan St, South Melbourne
Map:
http://link.toolbot.com/google.com/73016
When:
15th of May, Meeting starts at 7:00, so get there before hand (doors open at 6:30).
Agenda:
Richard Herbert, CTO of
NGA.NET, Australia's leading e-recruitment company, has been working with ColdFusion since 1997 and version 2.0. With a background in the legal and training industries Richard has developed applications for retail, point of sale, aviation, training, manufacturing, government and of course the HR industry. Also Telstra (but who hasn't?)...
Since 2000 Richard has been building
NGA.NET's e-recruitment product and delivering solutions to Top 500 companies and federal government, where
NGA.NET have 100% market share. The application has gone through many evolutionary steps, with a brand new version built on mach-ii/ColdSpring/Transfer architecture in beta for 2008.
NGA.NET is in the BRW Fast 100 for 2008 - a list of Australia's top 100 fastest growing companies.
And the presentation...
...will be titled 'Usability for Developers - The Ugly Truth'. I will be seeking to provide the audience with an understanding of what the field of usability covers, how to apply usability methods during the development cycle and the surprising results you can achieve.
Depending on time, Mark Mandel will also take us through some of the CF9 discussion that occurred at the cf.Objective() conference, and give us some insight into what could possibly be coming in CF9.
If you are going to attend, please RSVP to mark -dot- mandel -at- gmail -dot- com.
Only those that RSVP are eligible for the door prizes, so make sure you apply!
See the CFUG Melbourne Calendar at:
http://www.cfcentral.com.au/Events/index.cfm
Or add to your Google Calendar - search for 'CFUG Melbourne'.
As per usual, we'll grab pizza during the evening, so we have something to scoff down!
Look forward to seeing you all there.
Okay, forgive me one Australia joke ;o).
cf.Objective()
was an absolutley fanstastic conference all around, and I had an
incredible time. Not only were the presentations top notch, but it's
always an incredible pleasure to meet up with the people that I only
tend to see once a year, and I always get a huge burst of inspriation
just being around clever people and sharing various ideas over a drink
or two.
Presentations
I'm not going to go into all of the presentations, but as per usual,
they were all of an incredibly high calibre, and I came out of all of
them learning something new.
Highlights of the conference for me were:
Model-Glue 3: Back to its Roots - Joe Rinehart
This was a really interesting presentation, to see what MG3, code named
Gesture,
had in store for its users. I really like the innovative approach Joe
has taken to enable to framework to generate itself as you develop with
it.
Selling Professional Development at a Hostile Shop - Terrence Ryan
I
now refer to Terrence as 'the master manipulator' ;o). He outlined a
series of personality types that can often occur when working in an
organisation that tends to lean against the utilisation of software
development practices such as frameworks, unit testing, or version
control, and how to encourage them to accept, and even appreciate,
these practices when previously they had shunned them.
His
use of images to illustrate each of his points was also particularly
clever, I never knew that a photo of Bea Arthur wrestling a velociraptor could ever have any sort of context!
Workshop: ColdSpring 1337 - Chris Scott
Honestly,
this was probably my favourite session at cf.Objective(). Chris went
through some really interesting way you can use AbstractFactories and
AOP to really push what is possible to do within ColdSpring. He used a
Flex / ColdSpring / Transfer/ Yahoo Maps mash-up to show this off,
incorporating some nice Transfer powered Flex Remoting, implemented
with some very nice ColdSpring Remote Proxy AOP work (Before people
ask, yes, this will be finished off and released at some point)
Finally, Chris showed off his new Flex framework,
Swiz,
and while I don't even do much (any?) Flex development, I looked at and
just went 'Well, that is a pretty sweet framework'. I'm looking to do
some Flex work in the near future, and I can see me really getting into
Swiz.
Workshop: Advanced Techniques with the ColdBox Framework - Luis Majano
While
I didn't attend most of this presentation (I think I was balled up on a
couch somewhere trying not to drop off to sleep), I dropped in at the
end, so that Luis and I could do a quick announcement of the CodexWiki
Open Source Wiki, which is currently powering
docs.transfer-orm.com. We are opening a private beta for Codex, before we do a full release. If you are interested in being involved, feel free to
drop me an email.
Transfer
One of my favourite things about the conference was running around
giving lots of people Transfer stickers. It gave me a wonderful
opportunity to talk to lots of people about Transfer, and I think I
actually managed to get it so that about one in every third person had
a Transfer sticker on their laptops (Statistics based on no real
analysis)! I passed on a stack of stickers to a few people, so if you
weren't fortunate to get any at cf.Objective(), or couldn't attend, you
may find some people around who still have some to hand out.
I also did two presentations on Transfer, one of of which was a repeat. While the first time I presented
Introduction to Build Applications with Transfer ORM,
didn't quite go according to plan (technical difficulties), people
still seemed to get a lot out of it, which I was very happy about. The
Transfer ORM Caching Mechanics and the repeat of the
Introduction talk went far more smoothly, and got good reviews from the
people that I talked to, which is very pleasing.
ColdFusion 9
The ColdFusion 9 keynote, and BOF was another highlight of the
conference for me, although, I must admit, I didn't hear any feature
requests that really surprised me.
Adobe is further opening up the ColdFusion development process, promising us a Open Bug Tracker, and setting up an Advisory Committee, which is fantastic.
We
got a hinting at a ECMAScript (style?) syntax for ColdFusion
components, which I know is something that people, myself included,
have wanted to a long time. From that, there seemed to be a big push
to be able to write AS3 on the server side. Considering that a lot of
new CF developers seem to be coming from Flex, I think this would be a
really smart move on Adobe's part. Not only does it streamline the
training process for Adobe based Rich Internet Applications, it
provides a solid, single language for Adobe products, which can then
only be expanded.
That being said, it
would be very important that the CFML language also be kept intact,
both for backward compatibility, and for the fact that a tag based
syntax just makes so much sense on the view layer. (Oh, and let's not
forget, some people just like writing CFML ;o) )
People
One of the biggest draw cards for cf.Objective() is the people you get
to hang out with. For me personally, it's the only chance I get per
year for me to actually see a lot of the people that I speak to day in,
day out on-line.
It also gave me a chance to meet and talk to some of the people I've worked remotely with as well, specifically, the
Dinowitzs, who run the great
Fusion Authority Quarterly Update, and the really cool
Alagad crew.
Let's also not forget that I won the Wii,
which was a big surprise! It was very amusing watching multiple people
try and convince me how it wouldn't work in Australia, and that I
should just give it to them, because really 'I didn't need it' ;o).
Let it be known, that a new power cable is on its way in the post, and
soon theWii will be up and running smoothly.
Oh yeah.. and I don't care what you lot say, it's cay-shing, not caaashing. ;o) See you all next year!
Wow. When I started this project
back in 2005
I had no idea it would blossom into what it is now, or that it would
take me 3 full years to turn it into an actual 1.0 release.
It's been a crazy, interesting, frustrating and incredibly rewarding ride, and I plan on continuing it well into the future.
So here I present to you the release candidate of
Transfer 1.0, ready for your
download and consumption !
Some of the major new features include:
- Composite Key Support
- Transaction Support
- Binary Data support
- Configuration includes
- Cascading operations e.g. cascadeSave(), cascadeDelete()
- A huge number of performance improvements
- Public Bug Tracker
- Public Wiki
Please see the
full release notes for more information.
I want to extend a big thanks to all those people who have helped out
with Transfer, with code, testing, documentation, or just giving your
ear as I try and work out a n-th level nested recursive threading
issue, you all are too many to mention, but you know who you are, and
you guys rock!
I'm really happy with the way the Transfer community has grown over the
past few years, recently passing 320 members, and big kudos to you all
for helping me bring Transfer to this 1.0.
In the coming months, the following is the plan for Transfer -
- Transfer Support finalised and advertised.
The details of this have been worked out, expect a blog post on this either during, or shortly after cf.Objective()
- Infrastructure
You will notice there is the new Wiki and Bug Tracker. There will be a
complete rebuild of the Transfer site, to integrate the wiki and the
tracker, and provide the community with more ways to learn and interact.
- Transfer Training
This is the next big thing for Transfer, and I will be starting to write the curriculum after I get back from cf.Objective()
- Transfer Survey
Expect to a see a survey in the upcoming months, to get a feeling for
how the community is using Transfer, and what sort of enhancements they
want for the future.
- Transfer 1.1
Yep, I've already started thinking about a 1.1 release! I think I also
know what new features will be in it, but I won't ruin the surprise.
- Transfer Developer and Training Certification
I've had some recent interest in this, and it is still on the roadmap. Once the training curriculem is finalised, this will be also be developed.
Hopefully that will give you guys something to think about while you play with the 1.0 Release candidate!
