Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

I decided that since it's now hit winter, and the nights close in so early, that I should spend one hour each evening learning about something. Since Ray seems to be getting into Groovy I thought to myself that I might be good with CF and ok with Java, I really needed to learn some other technologies. This helps me get my thinking hat on even when I am coding in CF. Revitalize the old noodle so to speak.

Now, if have heard of Groovy you might say "But it's just like Java". Well, yes and no. I think Groovy is closer to ColdFusion in its dynamic/runtime approach than it is on Java. I do think that sometimes we are looking too much at the Java world and copying a lot of the OO ideas without thinking about how a dynamic language might solve that. Hence this little foray into learning a new language!

Just so you know, I am working from the book "Beginnning Groovy and Grails" by Judd, Nusariat and Shingler.

So, what is Groovy? well from reading the book it seems that the Java Developers of the world were jealous of the productivity gained from the dynamic language developers (such as Ruby and PHP) and wanted a way to join those kids whilst maintaining backwards compatibility. Sure, there is more in the book, but go buy it and read it yourselves ;) so along was developed Groovy. The language sits on top of the JVM the same way that java does and in fact, I learned that you can copy and paste your complete Java code into a .groovy file and it will run with no problems!

 The syntax is much cleaner too, compared to java, compare the following examples (to just get a class created):

Java:

package uk.co.markdrew.testings;
public class Todo{
   private String name;
   private String note;
   
   public Todo(){}
   
   public Todo(String name, String note){
      this.name = name;
      this.note = note;
   }
   
   //imagine the getters and setters, another 12 lines of code which I cant be bothered to write
}

Groovy: public class Todo{
   String name;
   String note;
}

Right... that is about it... the groovy class already has a constructor, and the variables can be accessed either directly or through what seems to be auto generated getters and setters. YAY for less code!

So, how I got started? Well I downloaded the cross platform installer from the Groovy website

Running through that it then asks you to add GROOVY to your environment variables and GROOVY/bin to your PATH variable, if you are on OS X you can do it as detailed here

Once I did that, I was able to go to the terminal and type "groovy" and it picked it up and everything was super duper cool!

Then I went to get the TextMate bundles since I prefer learning a new language as simply as possible without needing to drop down into an IDE (learn the basics then you need the power of an IDE)

My first program was to make a Todos.groovy file with the following:

public class Todo {
      String name
      String note
   }
   def todos = [
      new   Todo(name:"1", note:"one"),
      new Todo(name:"2", note:"two"),
      new Todo(name:"3", note:"three")
   ]
   todos.each {
      println   "${it.name} ${it.note}"
   }

That's nice right? nice and neat! I then learned about loops, Sets, Maps, Lists and string concatenation which you can see in the line (println "${it.name} ${it.note}") above. Well, that is it so far, I am continuing to read the book and will move onto regular expressions (the bane of my life) tonight!

Coming up this Thursday 25th of September, the "a Wee Dram of Scotch" one day conference is taking place in London.

This is a great replacement to the cancelled CFDevCon that was meant to be happening over in Brighton, but alas didn't for various reasons. Which brings to mind whether we should have more conferences like this, one day, very cheap (at £10 for entry its surely the cheapest conference there is!) but with still some awesome speakers such as Sean Corfield, Peter Bell and Mike Brunt, not to mention Adam Lehman from Adobe doing the keynote!

So what do you think? Should there be more one day conferences? Would you like your CFUG to cover this instead? More cheap (or free) training in your locality?

Also, how would we expand the use of CF? Is this a good medium for this?

Would love to hear people's opinions on this.

Next week, CFUnited DC gets on the way, and what a busy conference it will be! Having checked my schedule it looks like it will be a real marathon for me. Here is my schedule: Wed 1:30 - 2:30 : ColdSpring: Better living through configuration Wed 8:30pm - 9:30pm : Improving quality through code reviews and mentoring Thurs 9:30 - 10:30: Fresh Air: Getting to grips with Aptana and AIR applications Fri 9:45-10:45: CFEclipse Reloaded Fri 11:00 - 12:00: Jing Demo (5 mins) Fri 11:00 - 12:00: Railo Demo (10 mins) Sat 9:45-10:45: CFEclipse Reloaded Sat 2:45-3:45: ColdSpring: Better living through configuration You might ask what the Jing and Railo Demo's are about, well, you are just going to have to turn up and find out! :) Hope to see you all there!

Just a quick update that if you are interested in the EventGuard project, want to make some additions/modifications or even if you have found some bugs, I have just checked in the code and posted the zip over at the EventGuard Project page on RiaForge Any feedback is appreciated!

EventGuard is an Action Pack for the Model-Glue framework that allows you to secure your events based whether a user is logged in or using a user's assigned roles. On a simple level, it allows you to define which event-handler you will use to carry out the login, and then put a list of event-handler names that you want to protect. EventGuard also allows to define which event-handlers you want to exclude in your security check so that you can perform a blanket wide inclusion using "*".

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Posted on the CFDEV list this fantastic song about MVC Check it out (and read the comment at the bottom)

As you may know from my previous posts, I am a bit into Model-Glue. Besides giving tips on using it I have talked at a couple of ColdFusion User Groups about the framework and try and pass on any knowledge I can, since I think its a nice brief framework that in conjunction with ColdSpring and Reactor (or Transfer) can really help your application development. The problem with just giving tips, is that if you have a whole development team to get up to speed, you need more formal training to really get up to speed. If you are in the USA, I found out recently that Alagad,Inc that über development company (run by Reactor supremo Doug Hughes, with none other than Jared Rypka-Hauer and Scott Stroz amongst others!) has started offering training courses in Model-Glue! The four day course based in Arlington VA seems to cover anything you need to get your team up to date, and, for a hands-on four day course doesn't seem expensive at all (ok, that might be because the pound is strong against the dollar, but then again, its still pretty cheap). Check out the details on Alagad's site (Tell them I sent you and I am sure they will make you a cup of tea!)

Do you need someone to present at your CFUG? Well, I have been doing a lot of presentations lately, which can be seen over in my Presentations page, which means I have a lot of content I can present on. If you have a specific topic (including CFEclipse of course!) Why not email me with your proposal and I shall see what I can do. I am based in London, England so unless there is a nice budget to fly me out, I can also do remote presentations using Adobe Connect. I am available in the evenings mostly so let me know if you ever need an extra presenter at your CFUG or company.

Yep, I am looking for a talented ColdFusion developer to come and work for/with me at Design UK's offices in the centre of London. If you want more information about the role, head over to the Design UK Careers section of the website and apply via there. You don't have to use CFEclipse, just be damn good... are you that good? Apply now! (the obvious bits...)

• You need a valid EU working permit
• This is an on-site role, sorry
• No agencies, how many times??? NO AGENCIES!
• Experience in frameworks is a must

UPDATE: this role has now been filled! Woohoo!

How is that for a mouthful of a title? I shall be speaking tonight at 7pm GMT (2pm EST) with Nick Tong from cfframeworks.com about the newly released CF Frameworks Explorer for CFEclipse. Its one of these new fangled Adobe Connect rooms, you can join in by going here: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/frameworksexplorer/ (hopefully it will be recorded so if you cant make it tonight, you can watch it in your own time)

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