PSA: Browser Back Button Differences

January 11, 2010 4:37 PM | Chris P.
Categories : JavaScript,Web 2.0

At work, we had some old display code that was supposed to prevent users from submitting the same form twice. In the form's submit event, there was a window scoped boolean being set. If validation errors needed to be displayed, then the boolean was un-set. And at the very top of the submit action it would just 'return' if it saw the boolean. Maybe it will make more sense if you look at the submit event handler.

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CFUnited 2009: Adam Lehman - ColdFusion 9, What's New

August 14, 2009 6:32 AM | Chris P.
Categories : Conferences,ColdFusion

First up was Server.cfc. However that is a bit of a misnomer. You can actually point the administrator to any CFC. That CFC simply needs to have an onServerStart() method. This should be quite a boon for getting sites that have an expensive (read "slow") first request all spun up and ready for traffic.

Next up was nested cftransaction. Not a lot to explain here. From what I saw, it should satisfy you if you ever said to yourself "I really wish I could nest transactions in CF".

Then we got introduced to cffinally/finally. I personally have never used this even in languages that I have access to it. Basically it gives you this syntax: "try { ... } catch (e) { ... } finally { ... }". If someone wants to explain an compelling use case for "finally", I would love to hear it...

And then there was cfcontinue and it was good. Seriously! I mean, I'm excited about this one and at the same time amazed it took them this long.

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CFUnited 2009: Peter Bell - Requirements and Estimating

August 12, 2009 11:57 AM | Chris P.
Categories : Conferences,ColdFusion

Peter looks at projects in roughly 3 categories.

  • Configuration < $8000 - free spec (just set up something already built)
  • Customization < $50,000 - paid spec (requirements gathering, setting up and customizing packages)
  • Exploration $50,000 - no spec (hard to even define scope)

Configuration

These projects are all about efficiency. You will need to simplify the specs for these types of projects. You will need to have/use configurable code to implement deliverable. That could be via something with a setting file or configuration wizard. In some cases you might use DSLs (domain specific languages). And for very simple stock types of things you can even reuse prior specification documents (copy and paste, or compile stock specs as you go).

Customization

I think here he was talking about a site that will use a lot of code that you or someone else already wrote.

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Using argumentCollection And Overriding Arguments

May 28, 2009 10:46 AM | Chris P.
Categories : ColdFusion

I ran some test code the other day just to make sure that I correctly understand how arguments passed in to functions in CFML work. If you know everything there is to know about functions and arguments in ColdFusion, then feel free not to read the rest of this. But, if you're curious...

Here is the code:

<cfoutput>
   <cffunction name="ExtraArgs" access="public" returntype="string">
      <cfargument name="Arg1" required="false" type="string" />
      <cfargument name="Arg2" required="false" type="string" />
      <cfargument name="Arg3" required="false" type="string" />
      <cfargument name="Arg4" required="false" type="string" />
      <cfif structKeyExists(arguments,'Arg4')>
         <cfreturn arguments.Arg4 />
      <cfelse>
         <cfreturn 'undefined' />
      </cfif>
   </cffunction>
   <cfset args3 = {Arg1='value1', Arg2='value2', Arg3='value3'} />
   <cfset args4 = {Arg1='value1', Arg2='value2', Arg3='value3', Arg4='value4'} />
   <br/> 1) #ExtraArgs(argumentCollection=args3)#                   <!--- output = "undefined" --->
   <br/> 2) #ExtraArgs(argumentCollection=args4)#                   <!--- output = "value4" --->
   <br/> 3) #ExtraArgs(argumentCollection=args4, Arg4='SomeOtherValue')# <!--- output = "SomeOtherValue" --->
</cfoutput>

All of the arguments are specified as 'not required' with no 'default' value. The function looks for the existence of the fourth argument and either returns that or the string "undefined".

The first time it is called with the "args3" struct that omits the "Arg4" argument, it returns "undefined".

The second time it is called with the "args4" struct, which contains "Arg4", it returns "value4" (the value of "Arg4" in the args4 struct).

The third time it is called with the "args4" struct and also the "Arg4" argument in addition to that, it returns "SomeOtherValue". This, I think, is the most interesting one. With this behavior, you could store structs containing the default arguments for certain operations, and then call those operations overriding defaults as needed.

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