Book 4: Coldfusion MX7 Certified Developer Study Guide

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Ben Forta’s guide to getting Coldfusion certified

If you’re looking to get Coldfusion Certified there’s not too many products out there to help you. I wrote about the few I used of which this small but in depth book played an important role.

If you’re wondering just what a “Study Guide” is, it’s not hard to describe. Imagine the default programming book layout where the author goes through examples and extracts the ideas from each of the mini-lessons. This study guide is basically that same concept minus the demo examples. There is still code in short blocks of course, but most the code is self contained and not part of a greater chapter all using that same code.

As for the chapters themselves they are surprisingly short. For instance there’s a chapter on Coldfusion Components (CFCs) that measures in at a mere 15 pages. Other chapters are equally brief: Lists (6 pages), Locking (4 pages) and Session Management (8 pages). The important part of these chapters isn’t in the details, but in a very quick description. When studying for the test, I was able to reread entire chapters on subjects I was missing questions in in almost no time at all.

I should point out that this book isn’t meant for learning these topics from scratch. If you’re wanting that, you’d be better off with the Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 Web Application Construction Kit (Wact). If you’re already a Coldfusion developer and want to see what subjects you have a limited understanding of this is a great read though. At 444 pages of content, many of those being blank pages between the 50 short chapters or quiz pages at the end of each, it doesn’t seem like a very long reference book.

At the end of each chapter there are a few multiple choice questions relating to that chapter. These questions help solidify the material immensely. In the back of the book are all of the answers to these questions as well as a descriptions of the answers as well. These are the same questions that are available on Ben Forta’s Study Guide Quiz online. There are certainly a good way of measuring your initial ability, and if you find yourself unsure at least there’s only ~8 pages of material covered to brush up on.

The one thing I did believe this book lacked was more test questions at the end of each chapter. There are usually only 3-5 questions, which become easily remembered. Although this means you know these 3-5 very well, the rest of the topics from the chapters fade more easily. It would’ve been nice to see a larger question pool, or perhaps more questions available in the online study guide quiz results with reference page numbers which could then be expanded at any time. I like the idea of an accompanying website with tests, but don’t believe it was used to it’s potential in this case. If you’re looking for a more thorough practice test, I’d suggest getting a hold of Centrasofts CFMX Exam Buster 7.0.

I’d say if you’re planning on getting certified this is a must have resource. Even after certification though it serves as sort of a bulging-pocket reference sort of book where the meat from any topic can be obtained in far less time than with the WACT book. Still though, no book can offer a guarantee, so best to read what you can from other sources as well, although I’d have to say this is the best starting point I can imagine.

My rating: 5.0 stars

Head First Design Patterns

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Your Brain on Design Patterms

If you’ve had a hard time learning design patterns you’re not alone. Since 1995 when the Gang of Four coined the term nothing else in the programming world has caused more headaches. Although the ideas presented were groundbreaking, many people were left in the dark by the technical writing, not being quite sure how to implement the the depth of knowledge within.

The Head First series is unlike any other programming books you’ve ever read. Rather than paragraph after paragraph of text, this series uses images, conversation, questions, diagrams, emotions and much more to get the users attention and keep it. There isn’t a page in the entire book of plain text. Java is used for code examples throughout the book, starting at the most basic syntax and expanding on it. In addition to learning patterns, you get a basic understanding of Java here as well. In order to throttle the flow of knowledge in both cases, code is always limited to a single page, and always with comments written on the side rather than the typical //inline comments. They stand out much more because of this, making the meaning and the code itself read by different parts of your brain. The end result of all this is that instead of just throwing out a load of design patterns and possibly remembering one or two, but to learn everything possible.

Does it work? That will depend on how this book is read. Throughout the book there are exercises, so have a pencil handy. These could be coding simple classes, uml like designs, mapping vocabulary to definition or even crossword puzzles. These are very well paced to where if you’re reading and taking in the book you’ll be able to do these without a problem.

Although chapters bounce around between stimuli, the book is well structured. Each design pattern has it’s own chapter (occasionally two patterns will share a chapter). It begins with some problem and works it up to the point where there is a possible solution, although not the best one. At this point it asks the reader “can you think of a better way” in some form, and proceeds to shows how the pattern of that chapter could help out. Sometimes it’ll do this twice in chapter, giving multiple routes to learning the same information.

After 11 chapters of patterns we take a turn to patterns of patterns. This is a quick way of throwing everything leaned up until this point together in one super application. Although it isn’t a real world situation, its a great brush up on all the patterns before going into the famous Model-View-Controller pattern. In the past when shown what MVC is it’s always been presented to me as Model = Business Logic, V = all display, C = single point of contact for code. Head First takes a different approach by explaining what design patterns make up Model View Controller. They do so for both a simple Java application and a jsp webpage, which translates to just about any other web programming medium. They even have a MVC song!

Overall I’ve been pleasantly impressed by this one. There were days reading it when I simply couldn’t put it down. I’d heard strong recommendations from the Helms and Peters podcast, the What’s on your bookshelf segment in Fusion Authority Fall 2006 and Peter Bell. I’ll agree with them all and say this is a powerful book. They do go into the upsides and the downsides of using patterns, repeatedly stating how patterns are not a “solution”, merely a means to an end and that the easiest solution to a problem should be the one taken. If you’re interested in learning some design patterns, this is a great place to start!

My rating: 5.0 stars

Fusion Authority Quarterly Update, Summer 2006

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The first great publication of the Fusion Authority

I have a problem with magazines and collections of short publications. Articles that aren’t immediately eye catching sometimes get skimmed over and eventually forget to follow up. I decided to use one of my 50 Books as a way of finishing up this great publication.

The Fusion Authority Quarterly update is a publication that premiered at CF United, put out by House Of Fusion. The publication includes well written and edited articles, all Coldfusion specific of course. The authors include a number of well known bloggers such as Raymond Camden, Joe Rinehart and Matt Woodward; amongst many others guest writters.

The main focus of this issue is “Coldfusion 7 Features you need to know”, which it covers in a handful of articles. Not all are immediate useful to me, but at least they are enlightening on features I was unaware of. Coldfusion Report Building? Sounds cool, but can’t say I’ve had the need just yet. One of the best and easily implemented articles is about Application.cfc, a new feature for Coldfusion 7. That’s one article that was read on the first pass, but I can safely say the instructions and commentary helped further organize an application using it. There are other related articles on features you should be using as well, including a great in depth article about Unit Testing, and the obligatory CFEclipse article (you use it by now don’t you?!).

The most interesting article for me was Doug Boude‘s article The Shoemaker and the Asynchronous Process Elves comparing performance using CF7′s asynchronous gates versus standard serial processing. Doug provides easy to follow code on a subject I was aware of, but not aware of the huge advantages gained. In his sample application, he records the time taken to insert 256 records using using both methods. The end result? Inserting it asynchronously took 1.7 seconds, which inserting it using “normal” means took a whopping 20.7 seconds. Quite an eye opening article on the possibilities this offers. The biggest downside of this feature is that it’s a CF7 Enterprise only, which might rule it out for most people.

One of the first articles is a round table discussion of “What’s Hot” and what has the authors interested and passionate. This is one section I’d love to see in future issues, because it’s both ever changing and shows what people are truly passionate about now. Reading over peoples blogs gives some of this information, but the overall snapshot of the Coldfusion world these gives is great.

This is a great publication, easily worth the cost. There’s almost no ads, and there’s great content! I did end up running into information I already knew a few times, with a little difficulty holding interest during those lows. I’m looking forward to reading the second issue now: focus on frameworks!

My rating: 4.5 stars