Comments about oreilly Programming ColdFusion MX, Second Edition:

Was doing a search for ColdFusion books because my second edition of my CF book just came out today. Found this in the list and had to share with others it is still on my bookshelf and MUCH of the content is valid for CF9 developers. It was the greatest book of it's day and O'Reilly should keep it off the market so my book doesn't have that level of competition! :) Though hopefully my book is of unique value and will serve the readers also. Rob's book was a big inspiration for me to write one and then a revised edition.

Comments about oreilly Programming ColdFusion MX, Second Edition:

I found this book to be very easy to digest. There were many good examples of how to use CFML and ways to implement it (i.e. writing a page that would display results for ipconfig. Very useful for an ISP helpdesk). The sections that involve XML, Java, and maintaining database records provide an excellent look into some neat uses of ColdFusion. I know for sure that when I do CF work for my job that this book will be right by my side.

Comments about oreilly Programming ColdFusion MX, Second Edition:

This is my fourth CF book. That isn't to say that the first three were all rubbish, although one of them was! (ISBN 0735712719, which I quickly sent back; read my review at www.compman.co.uk and you'll see why)

I quickly moved on to ISBN 0321158024, which was a good, relatively cheap, get-you-started primer. However after a month or two I ran out of road with this as a CF reference work and I subsequently acquired ISBN 0072225564. Now there's nothing really wrong with this book, it's just that I still couldn't get the answers I wanted. After reading a load of reviews I acquired Rob's book the other day.

Now it may have over 1100 pages and look rather anorak-y but, trust me, it's brilliant and the writing style makes it easy to read. The author is clearly evangelical about CF, and if you haven't yet decided on a web development tool, after reading the first Chapter or so of this you'll ignore ASP, PHP and the rest.

I could give a dozen reasons why this is a book for beginners upwards, but just one example of how to do things quicker and simpler than the other books would be how to display a table of data with a header and alternately banded rows for greater legibility. Go to Chapter 11 and read example 11.2 on p314. If it looks like Greek to you, then it won't after you've read the early stuff or have played around with CF for longer than a week or three.

The bad news about this book is that I now want to re-code ALL my earlier stuff. The good news is that the lines of code are shrinking before my eyes, they're more decipherable, and probably faster.

OK, so I'll probably never use 30-50% of this book, but we're all different, and that 30-50% may well be the bits you need.

Comments about oreilly Programming ColdFusion MX, Second Edition:

Programming ColdFusion MX is my reference book of choice when i'm doing MX development. The first edition was always on my desk - it's usefulness ensured it never made it to the bookshelf. The second edition (covering MX 6.1) looks to be even better, including new chapters on CFCs, Flash Remoting, and Web Services. As Rob notes in the preface, much of the book content has been revised or completely rewritten - it's not just a reheated first edition. Somehow, even with all the new and updated content, this book has not turned into the typical tech reference doorstop.

Both the first and second editions of this book read consistently from chapter to chapter; Rob is to be commended for his clear and understandable writing style. Unlike many technical reference books, this one does not serve simply as a tag and function listing with limited examples. Rob includes many substantive examples, thoroughly commented, that support the text in each chapter very well. Many pieces of sample code could easily be repurposed in a real application.

This book is a narrative reference that is as easy to skim as it is to read. Newbies and Certified CFMX developers will both gain equally from keeping it nearby. The second edition of the book has now taken the place of the first on my desk!