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DIGITAL EDITION  MOST READ THIS WEEK By Virtualization News Desk Reads: 91,957 | By Jeremy Geelan Reads: 66,611 | By Jeremy Geelan Reads: 61,943 | By James Hamilton Reads: 46,253 | By Jeremy Geelan Reads: 43,716 | By Jeremy Geelan Reads: 43,668 | By Jimmy Zhang Reads: 37,126 | By Virtualization News Desk Reads: 29,710 | By Maureen O'Gara Reads: 25,765 | By Virtualization News Desk Reads: 25,299 |
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Hal Helms
Hal Helms is a well-known speaker/writer/strategist on software development issues. His monthly column in CFDJ contains his Musings on Software Development and he has written and contributed to several books. Hal holds training sessions on Java, ColdFusion, and software development processes. He authors a popular monthly newsletter series. For more information, contact him at hal@halhelms.com or see his website, www.halhelms.com.
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By Hal Helms  Recently, I've been reading a book recommended to me by my friend, Clark Valberg. The book is A Whole New Mind; its author is Daniel Pink. In this article, I'll discuss why I think the premise of the book holds such promise for ColdFusion programmers - and how it challenges us to rethi... Jan. 3, 2007 09:30 PM Reads: 10,339 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms  During a recent conversation between Mike Britton, Brian Kotek, and myself, we were discussing the features that we'd like to see in ColdFusion 8. (A podcast of this discussion can be found at helmsandpeters.com.) I'd like to share with you some thoughts on the topic. Much that follows... Sep. 2, 2006 11:00 AM Reads: 14,545 | By Hal Helms  It seems that not a week goes by without another story of a major organization inadvertently leaking private data. In one recent week, representatives of a Rhode Island government agency reported that tens of thousands of credit card transactions on a government-run site had been stole... Aug. 8, 2006 12:00 PM Reads: 10,186 | By Hal Helms  For the past several weeks, I've been immersed in writing a large application - so immersed, in fact, that I missed writing my column for last month! This application has been particularly interesting to me because it makes such extensive use of AJAX - that combination of JavaScript, D... Jun. 28, 2006 04:30 AM Reads: 13,810 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms  In the last two installments of 'Foundations,' we looked at the issue of static v dynamic typing in ColdFusion and I argued that treating ColdFusion as a statically typed language led to disappointment and defeat. In this issue let's explore some of the possibilities available when we ... Mar. 11, 2006 02:00 PM Reads: 17,165 | By Hal Helms; Ben Edwards; Matthew Woodward  It's all Simon's fault. We say this to all framework writers who, even now, are trying to recover from the task assigned them by CFDJ's editor-in-chief: provide an article and an implementation of the Macromedia Pet Market application in their chosen framework. Jan. 31, 2006 05:45 PM Reads: 24,597 | By Hal Helms  Last month, we took a long look at strong typing. We saw that while strong typing offers many benefits in a language such as Java, trying to attach strong typing to ColdFusion produces really difficult problems. And last month, due to my 'in' connections, we were even able to briefly i... Jan. 28, 2006 11:15 AM Reads: 13,214 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms  In this article, I argue that by adopting the static typing model found in languages such as Java, we have been seduced into accepting a bad model - or at least a model that is inappropriate for the dynamic typing mechanism inherent in ColdFusion. I'll explain the problems that such a ... Jan. 21, 2006 12:30 PM Reads: 21,241 | By Hal Helms  In the first etude, we looked at arrays; in the second, we worked with structures. In this etude, let's work through some exercises that may use one or the other or both. Ready to dig in? Oct. 26, 2005 06:45 AM Reads: 13,104 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms  The life of a writer is sometimes a lonely one. After writing something, you send it out and aren't sure how it will be received. Last month was a happy change: I received a lot of feedback from my column introducing the idea of études. In the introduction to the series on études, we... Aug. 9, 2005 05:00 PM Reads: 16,247 | By Hal Helms  Have you ever noticed the correlation between musicians and programmers? Some of the best programmers I know are or have been musicians. I recently had a class where 70% of the students were active musicians - some even with CDs of their work. Jun. 16, 2005 03:00 PM Reads: 13,592 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms; Ben Edwards  Ben and I were talking about my earlier CFDJ article on the Decorator design pattern [cfdj, vol. 6 issue 11]. In the article, I explained how the Decorator pattern could be used in situations in which there exists a base class with various options. Jun. 16, 2005 02:00 PM Reads: 17,541 | By Hal Helms In their book Head First Design Patterns, the four coauthors lay out a series of key principles for creating robust software designs. One of the most important of these principles is 'Find what varies and encapsulate it.' In this article, let's apply this principle to the use of config... Apr. 13, 2005 12:00 AM Reads: 15,856 | By Hal Helms I've been busy lately providing training in implementing object orientation (OO) with ColdFusion components (CFCs) to several companies. I've found that most ColdFusion developers approach OO as something to 'layer on' over their traditional programming practices. Even many Java develo... Feb. 11, 2005 12:00 AM Reads: 14,119 | By Hal Helms While standing in line at my local coffee shop the other day, I was thinking about how helpful a thorough knowledge of design patterns is for a developer. In case you're unclear about what design patterns are, think of them as time-tested solutions to very specific problems. Dec. 14, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 19,831 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms My heart beat faster as the mail carrier handed me the mail. There it was: my latest edition of Thrilling Tech Tales magazine. As I always do, I immediately turned to the exact center of the magazine to read the latest installment of 'The Adventures of the Morphic Family.' This week, i... Nov. 24, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 13,555 | By Hal Helms The Agile Manifesto is the product of 17 smart, well-meaning developers who met in February 2001 to discuss problems in software development. The list of developers included Kent Beck, Alistair Cockburn, Martin Fowler, Ron Jeffries, Robert 'Uncle Bob' Martin, and Dave Thomas - people w... Oct. 20, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 18,159 Replies: 5 | By Hal Helms 'I'm getting a lot of resistance,' my client told me. 'Prospective clients love the functionality of our application, but they shy away when they hear that it's developed in ColdFusion. Their IT people don't like it and we're starting to lose sales.' Sep. 15, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 13,305 | By Hal Helms For more than seven years, Fusebox (www.fusebox.org), now in its fourth version, has been the dominant framework for building ColdFusion applications. During that time, Fusebox has evolved from a set of best practices into a mature framework capable of tackling very large jobs while re... Aug. 13, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 19,887 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms With the advent of ColdFusion components (CFCs), introduced in ColdFusion MX version 6.0 and greatly improved in version 6.1, ColdFusion MX allows CF programmers to enter the mainstream of object-oriented (OO) programming. With the overwhelming success of the J2EE and the .NET platform... Jul. 20, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 19,491 | By Hal Helms If you missed this year's CFUN conference (June 26-27), you missed a lot. In addition to the great time spent meeting and talking with other ColdFusion programmers, Ben Forta gave a keynote demo of the next version of ColdFusion, code-named 'Blackstone'. Jul. 14, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 21,908 Replies: 3 | By Hal Helms One of the most enduring of American legends is that of John Henry, the 'steel drivin' man,' who pitted his strength against a machine - and won. Unlike many legends, John Henry was a real person - a former slave who was hired by the C&O Railroad to cut holes in rock into which explo... Jun. 22, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 24,696 Replies: 2 | By Hal Helms I was playing a particularly tough game of online Texas Hold'em with someone who called himself 'all_or_nothing'. I looked at my two hole cards: a 10 of spades and a 10 of clubs. It was down to just the two of us, vying for the total prize money of $5.00. May. 11, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 14,162 | By Hal Helms I recently gave a class in Fusebox 4 during which the issue of security came up. This issue seems to cause a good deal of trouble for programmers - so much so that when we wrote Fusebox 4 we provided some built-in abilities to help programmers with this. Apr. 13, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 15,198 | By Hal Helms It's past midnight and I'm in my car, prowling Atlanta for a good cup of coffee. (Such are the challenges of members of the Cult of the Midnight Programmer.) My cell phone rings. Mar. 9, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 12,861 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms I've just returned from a four-day class on Mach-II (www.mach-ii.com) that Ben Edwards and I gave to a group of developers at Macromedia in San Francisco. It was great fun to be working with so skilled a group. Feb. 25, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 12,950 | By Hal Helms When they hear that I run a class entitled 'Java for ColdFusion Programmers,' many developers ask me: 'Why the class in Java? Is ColdFusion dying?' It's a fair question. After all, technology in general and languages in particular have a lifespan. It's also true that ColdFusion is bei... Jan. 30, 2004 07:27 AM Reads: 10,432 Replies: 8 | By Hal Helms Mae West, the indomitable actress/comedienne of the 1930s and '40s, left us with some unforgettable quotes. She gave us such lines as, 'When caught between two evils, I generally pick the one I've never tried before,' and 'Too much of a good thing...can be wonderful.' She also offered ... Jan. 13, 2004 12:00 AM Reads: 12,721 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms In the past, I've written in broad terms about FLiP, the Fusebox Lifecycle Process, a methodology for delivering successful software projects that work (despite its name) with any - or no - software framework. In this article, I want to 'drill down' on one aspect of FLiP and see how it... Dec. 9, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 13,776 | By Hal Helms Ah, television! Where else can you see so much action? Murders are routinely committed and solved, dastardly plots are hatched and foiled, and characters learn some deep life-truth - all within a single hour. Nov. 11, 2003 11:09 AM Reads: 14,814 | By Hal Helms In the August edition of CFDJ, Ben Edwards and I presented a first look at Mach-II, a new, object-oriented framework for building software applications. In this issue, I offer a tutorial (with commentary) on building a simple Mach-II application. Oct. 15, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 15,515 | By Hal Helms O.K., but before you hang out your shingle, you might want to take this little test of your ColdFusion powers. So slip into the phone booth, put on your CF costume and away we go. . . Sep. 23, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 6,724 Replies: 1 | By Hal Helms Spend a little time on the ColdFusion Support Forum and you'll soon encounter frustrated ColdFusion developers trying to extract data into an Excel spreadsheet format. Sep. 23, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 8,745 Replies: 2 | By Hal Helms The great Victorian novelist, Charles Dickens, wrote of the time period of the French Revolution: 'It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.' Sep. 23, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 7,103 | By Hal Helms Everybody wants reusability, but nobody does it well, it seems. And that's frustrating. We know as coders that we end up writing software that's virtually identical over and over again. Sep. 18, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 6,509 | By Hal Helms Why is Fusebox important? To help answer that question, let's explore the similarities between the state of software development in 2000 and the state of rifle making exactly two centuries ago in 1800. Sep. 18, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 6,432 | By Hal Helms Everyone who has ever developed an application is all too familiar with the problem of clients' shifting notions of what they want and need in an application. I sometimes think the process of building a web application is much like building a house. Sep. 18, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 7,286 | By Hal Helms One of the great things about developing for the Web is the fun factor. While our grimmer, more serious IT cousins are exiled in lands populated by such dread monsters as COBOL and FORTRAN, and must do daily battle with the demon, MainFrame, our lot is far more pleasant. Sep. 18, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 6,877 | By Hal Helms The answer is...C. And did you know that ColdFusion processes application.cfm when an application page in the root directory or any of its sub-directories is requested? Sep. 17, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 6,156 | By Hal Helms The latest version of Fusebox - version 4 - has been taken out of beta and placed into general availability. Over the last seven years, Fusebox has grown from a collection of best practices and snippets of code into a full-featured, robust framework on which developers can build tr... Sep. 11, 2003 12:00 AM Reads: 12,934 |
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