Blog

We just announce our new addition to the ColdBox Platform as development continues for version 3.0 scheduled by the end of the year. This is the first standalone package ColdBox Offers and you can read all about it here:

http://blog.coldbox.org/post.cfm/introducing-mockbox-the-coldbox-mocking-framework

You can check out all the details about the new version of the GroovyLoader project. For those who don't know what ColdBox Projects are,well, they are a set of tools external to the core based on plugins, interceptors, modules, etc that can be downloaded and easily installed in any ColdBox application. If you haven't checked them out, I encourage you to do so by downloading them from the extras download section.

This version of the groovy loader helps you interact with the library more closely by having multiple locations for not only groovy scripts/classes, but also java libraries. You can also integrate the entire groovy runtime in your coldbox applications by using a single configuration interceptor called the GroovyStarter interceptor. 3 lines and you are swinging to the groove!!

The ColdBox team needs your input on the decision for the next upcoming release: 3.0.0

Here is the URL: http://tinyurl.com/pnddjn

I got back from CF.Objective this Saturday night and what a great conference. I had the privilege to speak for my second year at CF.Objective and I really enjoy this conference. The high energy and advanced topics is definitely what I enjoyed the most. For this year the sessions that I really enjoyed where Marc Esher's Test Driven Development, Sean Corfield's CFSpec discussion, the Git BOF, the Railo BOF and the new ORM cf9 features.

I think the most enjoyable BOF I attended was git lead by Peter Bell and Simeon Bateman, those guys KNOW THEIR STUFF!! Peter even posted the git pressos that I will be studying for quite a while. I am really starting to consider more an more a move to GIT for the entire ColdBox suite. Simeon had some EXCELLENT day to day cases and great explanations of how GIT differs from SVN. Thanks Simeon and Peter!!

Another important part of CF.Objective where my mocking and testing discussions with Bill Shelton from the MXUnit Team. It was uncanny that we where both developing some kind of mocking frameworks and our ideas where eerily similar. We definitely got our Mock On and discussed so many improvements for the upcoming MXUnit MightyMock and the new ColdBox Addition: MockBox!! I really enjoyed our session Bill and hopefully we can join forces on this one!!

I just found out about two nice functions in railo:

• isNull()
• nullValue()

Finally, a way to interact with java nulls easily. So all you do to create null values is do

if ( isNull( CacheManager.get('key') ) ){

writeoutput("object is not found in cache")

}

What if you need a null value?

cacheMap['luis'] = nullValue()

Two very simple functions, but they sure make life so so so much easier when integrating with java. This to me are my favorite two new functions.

I found a neat little feature in Railo 3.1 which I myself is calling multi-variable assignments.

Let's say you want to assign a value to multiple variables in coldfusion. You would usually do this:

Name = "Luis Majano";

ColdboxAuthor = Name;

CodexAuthor = Name;

AwesomenessAuthor = Name;

That is really neat right, well, Railo makes it fun!

Name = "Luis Majano"

ColdboxAuthor = CodexAuthor = AwesomenessAuthor = Name

How about that!! I can assign values to multiple variables, by just concatenaning the equals. Keep exploring Railo and you will find some nice hidden gems.

I am so glad to see this day as CFML becomes open source. Railo has just gone open source and WOW!! What an incredible engine. Not only that, but they are sporting 3 new websites:

• http://www.getrailo.com/
• http://www.getrailo.org/
• http://wiki.getrailo.org/ (My Favorite)

The websites look phenomenal and we also get a documentation website powered by Codex. I wonder who did the initial documentation?

You can download the open source version of Railo from their nice downloads page.

Get your registration going for CFUnited 2009 as the early bird registration is ending soon. They have also provided a great manager's guide of why YOU should attend and why YOUR manager should let you. So please download it here.

You can also register for our CBOX-100 Pre-Conference ColdBox Training class while you are there. Register Now!!

I will be attending the OCDev's User Group meeting on April 8th and talking about ColdBox. So please mark your calendars and hopefully you can attend!

http://ocdev.org/post.cfm/ocdev-april-meeting-coldbox-platform-more-than-mvc

I completely forgot to post about this and post a link to the event we hosted at Cal Poly Pomona last month between Adobe and Microsoft. The debate was excellent and we had great attendance for the IECFUG. We where able to get more students and interest in our ColdFusion User Group and hopefully get to recruit some more after an awe inspiring presentation by Kevin Hoyt.

Unfortunately, I won't say anything bad about Microsoft because I won a copy of Vista Ultimate! :) (hmm, what did I do with it?)

If you want to see the video for yourself and see how the debate was laid out see who won, check this link out:

http://video.csupomona.edu/streaming/Events/FutureOfComputing.html