Viewing by month: January 2006

Jan 17 2006

A Shameful, Counterfeit "BlogCFC"

Last night, Sean posted an entry entitled "How not to develop Open Source Software?" describing another blogger's rather odd view of Open Source development.

He didn't name the blogger, so I Google'd a bit and found the blog in question - and found it offering "BlogCFC 4.0.2" for download.

I downloaded the .zip file, unzipped it, and sure enough, it's Ray's BlogCFC software, the code that runs this (and at least a hundred) other blogs.

All of Ray's documentation had been stripped out, and a few new (encrypted) files added. All I can see these doing is replacing the comments popup with an inline <iframe>.

While the comments at the tops of Ray's files are left intact, there's no readme, documentation, or other mention of who truly put in time developing this piece of software.

I find this not just unprofessional, but shameful. I've released patches to BlogCFC (like the Aura skin) in the past, but I haven't bundled them with BlogCFC (who wants to keep up with versions?), and to do so after systematically removing the original author's documentation is simply wrong.

The worst part that I could find was this:

This blog powered by [omitted]_BlogCFC.

Created by Raymond Camden (ray@camdenfamily.com), made useful by ([omitted])

I found it useful long before you did this.

29 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 7:59 AM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue | Causing Trouble

Jan 15 2006

Model-Glue 2.0: "Unity"

Yes, Model-Glue is moving forward. No, it's not the all-encomposing <cf_writeMyApplicationForMe> tag you've been waiting for, but it's damn close.

Yes, there is going to be Model-Glue life after 1.1.

Yes, Unity will change how you do ColdFusion. It will reach the unconverted, CF 5.0 massses. And they will Grok it, because it will be easy.

Yes, Unity will show the JSP developers that RoR-like productivity and Java-like control can be achieved with a simple, tag-based language many have discarded as being "rudimentary," while retaining the full power of Java.

Yes, Unity will show, with a single streaming video demo, how it can change the ColdFusion landscape.

Yes, Unity can show that you can be a cool Web 2.0 developer without learning Ruby.

Yes, Unity follows the same KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid!) mantra that's always guided Model-Glue. (At least since Joe got his head out of his...well, you know, and stopped adding methods to core.Controller. God, what a bad idea that was. Caching? What was he thinking?).

Yes, Unity's design document is done, and we've found one (1!!!) new tag for ModelGlue.xml that will change your life.

Yes, Unity is a beautiful example of how Object Oriented programming and interfaces can make programming an art, not a struggle.

Yes, Unity will let you make the ASP.NET folks look stupid.

No: We (and that's "we," dammit, not just Joe!) won't say anything more until we're ready, except this:

  1. It's going to be fun.
  2. Headstart is the beginning, not the end, of what ColdFusion and Model-Glue can do. For you.
  3. You're going to have to wait a bit. Maybe as far as CFUnited 2006.

Adobe, take note:

We're going to make CF the most productive *beep*damn language known to mankind. Thanks for being smart enough to buy it, and proving Joe's old boss wrong for switching to .NET.

(Ok, so that's a bit emphatic, but Joe owns stock in Adobe.)

14 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 8:56 PM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue | Causing Trouble

Jan 13 2006

Mixins and cfinclude. Again.

In my post last night, I explained my reasons for favoring the use of <cfinclude> to achieve simple "Mixins" in ColdFusion components, and asked Simon Horwith to give more detail in reference to his opposition to the idea. He did so, over on his blog, and it's well worth a read. In fact, if you haven't read it yet, you may want to go do so, so that you get full context of my replies, inline below.

Read more...

1 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 11:57 AM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue | Causing Trouble

Jan 13 2006

One *funny* blond joke (not Mixins!)

Ok, I don't blog jokes that often, so when I do, it's definitely worth checking out. It's too good to reprint, credit needs to go where due, so head on over to Kay's blog to read it:

http://kay.smoljak.com/archives/?i-love-blonde-jokes

3 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 10:19 AM - Categories: Off Topic | Causing Trouble

Jan 12 2006

ColdFusion Mixins: For now, I'll CFInclude.

Last night, I blogged a way of doing "Mixins" in ColdFusion that involved the <cfinclude> tag. Mixins in ColdFusion aren't new, and I wasn't expecting my post to be perceived as an increase in the community's interest in their use. I'm not sure it's any higher now than it was a few days ago.

Read more...

5 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 8:42 PM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue | Causing Trouble

Jan 12 2006

Model-Glue, "Mixins," and Headstart

When Model-Glue 1.1 hits, you might notice something weird in the "Headstart" application template: a <cfinclude> tag in the middle of a CFC file. There's a story behind that, and it's a practical example of what people are calling a "Mixin."

Read more...

13 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 5:30 AM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue

Jan 11 2006

To My Dear ColdFusion Troll

Dear ColdFusion Troll,

I'm sorry that, recently, you haven't agreed with some things I've said on my blog. I regret that I cause your lack of self-confidence to surface, and that you feel that continually leaving anonymous comments on my blog is a beneficial form of therapy.

If you felt what you had to say was valid, and had confidence in your abilities as a writer, you'd probabably sign your work. Because you can't subscribe to entries, I hope you get this message, through the same channels you've gotten my other posts.

Earlier today, you implied that you'd like ColdFusion to have interfaces. Not for an intelligent reason, like those left by my other commentors, but because adding interfaces would leave us "with a language that resembles C# and is able to actually compete in the marketplace."

I've done a fair amount of C#, and really, it does a great job resembling Java.

Success in the marketplace is generally defined by economic success; if you were wise enough to hold Macromedia stock, you'd probably feel that ColdFusion and their other products have been successful. Unfortunately, if you've purchased MSFT stock to back C#, you've probably gone about nowhere for the past two years, while ADBE has doubled.

Maybe learning better market analysis skills could help with your ongoing self-esteem issues?

Going further, I'm afraid the only thing "dumb" about the statement "Macromedia took a robust language (Java) and dumbed it down" is the statement itself. If you'll review your history a bit, you'd notice that Macromedia took a limited language (ColdFusion) and rebuilt it on top of a robust language (Java), keeping ColdFusion's simplicity while allowing the full set of Java's capabilities to be accessed. That strikes me as a well-planned "smartening up."

If you continue to think that we "should have a better product than .NET because we have to pay an arm and leg for it!," I'm afraid that you yourself have some "smartening-up" to do. I've been doing ColdFusion for a while now, and I somehow still have both arms and legs.

If the price of a ColdFusion (even Enterprise) license is half of your limbs, I suggest you begin to value yourself more highly, or at least enter into a regimen of diet and exercise that increases the value of your carcas.

I'm concerned about more than just your health here; if you go beyond your limited scope of experience and purchase some serious enterprise software, you may have to give up not only your remaining limbs, but begin harvest those of your coworkers, friends, and family. ColdFusion is rather cheap in comparison, even in its Enterprise edition.

So please, see a psychiatrist about the esteem issue, and for the sake of your health and those around you, use a corporate card, not your body parts, to purchase software.

Sincerely,

Joe Rinehart

P.S. I've tried to use small words as much as possible, but please feel free to ask for clarification.

15 comments - Posted by Joe Rinehart at 1:36 PM - Categories: ColdFusion MX | Model-Glue | Causing Trouble