Microsoft finally unveiled its new product, Silverlight. But is it actually a product? Not really. It is more aptly described as a runtime system for a cut-down version of the .NET Framework and just-in-time (JIT) compilers. The runtime is tiny, designed to be a plugin to a web browser much like Flash is also available as a plugin. Microsoft see this technology as a potential “Flash killer”, although it is unlikely to achieve such a status, at least in the short to medium term. They have stiff competition from Adobe with the AIR/Flash/Flex combination which is engrained into the designer/developer community.

From the Silverlight website, it is clear that the project is heavily graphics-orientated and can do interesting things with video streams. Somewhat more interesting is that Microsoft have said that it will be consistent across multiple platforms, running on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It may even progress to Linux through the partnership with Novell, not to mention support for Windows smartphones and other Windows embedded devices. This is intriguing, yet promising for a company that historically has shunned competing technologies.

Microsoft described Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web”. The emphasis is on rich interactive applications delivered over the web. The result being applications which offer a new level of user interactivity to rival that of the desktop and firmly banish HTML-based website to the bin. Sounds familiar? Flash?

So how is it different from AIR/Flash/Flex? Essentially, you can use any of the languages supported under the .NET framework, which means that Silverlight applications can be written in C# or Visual Basic, as well as other languages such as Ruby and Python. Like the AIR/Flash/Flex combination, Silverlight has its own set of development and debug tools in Visual Studio and a complete Expression suite for visual designers.

The Killer Application?

Silverlight on its own will not be the killer application so-to-speak. It is the services behind Silverlight, the data streaming services, that will be a key differentiator. Combining Silverlight with Microsoft’s new initiative, quietly referred to as “Live 2.0″, will provide video storage and streaming capabilities worthy of a Google-styled offering. These streaming services will clearly carry some form of advertising. You don’t have to use the Microsoft service, but the intention is clear; high-bandwidth, high-availability streaming of video data requires huge investment and Microsoft is making that investment to take its own slice of a huge, fledgling market.

Video streaming isn’t the only part of the service. Microsoft plans to develop facilities such as server-side data and credit card processing. This opens up possibilites for an application developed in Silverlight to be hosted, managed and distributed by Microsoft or another partner. I hear alarm bells … hosted, managed and distributed all by Microsoft! This is clearly putting all your eggs in one basket, but prudence is key when choosing which services to sign up to.

The Future Is Online.

With Silverlight, Microsoft has shifted its emphasis and signalled a firm intention that the future is online. It will be offering end-to-end solutions that allow the design and development of systems, and the management and distribution of those systems based around web services running not only locally but out in the etha of the Internet. Utimately we will be able to choose when, where and how we access applications and information. Whether Microsoft’s vision can be successful is dependent on whether this behemoth of a company can metamorphose from a conservative institution into a dynamic one. They have the money, the intellect and the technology, they now need the spirit of a precocious of a teenager.

An interesting article I read in the CFDJ recently was entitled Poor Man’s HTTP Compression with ColdFusion. Almost every web application will benefit from the compression of content. A compression filter optimises the size of the content that is sent from a webserver to a web browser via the Internet. Since generating content and serving pages via the World Wide Web is the core behind web applications, it is simple components that aid these processes that are incredibly useful. This is where servlet filters come into play.

Servlet filters are tools available to web application developers. They are designed to be able to manipulate the request and responses that are sent to a web application, without manipulating the servlets, static pages like HTML and, in this case, CFM pages that are being used by the web application (unless of course that is the desired response). Servlet filters act like a chain of steps that a request and response must go through before reaching the page in the application.

Compressing Content Using a Servlet Filter

Compression is a process that reduces the number of bytes required to define a document in order to save disk space or transmission time. It is extremely useful for sending information across the web, because the speed at which people receive information from a web application is dependent upon how much data you are trying to send. The smaller the amount of information that is to be sent, the faster it can be sent. Therefore, compression and the associated responsiveness is a key component to retaining users and generating revenue from those retained users.

Compression can be effectively achieved by having a servlet filter conditionally pipe the produced content to a GZip-compressed file. GZip is supported by the HTTP protocol and almost all modern browsers (hence the servlet filter conditionally compresses the content).

GZip compression usually results in a 6:1 compression ratio, although this depends on how much content is being sent and what the content is.

Setting up the Servlet Filter in ColdFusion

Using the ColdBeans servlet filter found at the following URL:

http://www.servletsuite.com/servlets/gzipflt.htm

• Download the GZipFilter.jar
• Save GZipFilter.jar in the WEB-INF/lib folder in the ColdFusion Server wwwroot.
• Edit the web.xml file in the WEB-INF folder in the ColdFusion Server wwwroot with the following code:

  <filter>
  <filter-name>GzipFilter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>com.cj.gzipflt.GzipFilter</filter-class>
  </filter>
  <filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>GzipFilter</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>*.cfm</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>

• Restart the ColdFusion Service

Now, when you invoke any .cfm page the GzipFilter will check out client’s browser settings. If the browser does not support gzip, the filter invokes resource normally. If the browser does support gzip, output will be compressed.

Occam’s Razor (also spelled Ockham’s razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham.

Occam’s razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (law of succinctness):

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

which translates to:

entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity

This is often paraphrased as “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.” One consequence of this methodology is the idea that the simplest or most obvious explanation of several competing ones is the one that should be preferred until it is proven wrong.

So, how can this apply to web development. There is an analogy between software development and the scientific theory as a means to enhance the credibility of a particular set of programming practices. Once a programmer has a theory (model) of the software in their head, they can talk about and explain its behavior to others. When they make changes to the code, they do so in a way that is consistent with the theory and therefore “fits in” with the existing code base well. A programmer not guided by such a theory is liable to make modifications and extensions to the code that appear to be “tacked on” as an afterthought, and not consistent with the design and philosophy of the existing code base.

Simply, don’t add markup where markup is not needed. Don’t over complicate an application structure. If you have the choice between 2 or 3 paths to the same end - choose one and let it be the simplest and shortest, but with the caveat, don’t cut corners. This will make for cleaner, understandable code with faster download times, something all developers should work towards. CSS has helped this concept immersurably by removing the need to use inline styles, font tags, tables for positioning etc.

In terms of ColdFusion, the use of design patterns (e.g. Singleton, Model-View-Controller…) and the now numerous frameworks (e.g. Fusebox, Model-Glue, Mach-II, Reactor…) has reduced or even removed the concept of “spaghetti code”, the bane of may a web developer’s life and indeed the often muted argument against ColdFusion as an enterprise level application development environment.

By itself, Firefox is a lean and fast browser, but lacks many functions useful to a Web Developer. This is where extensions come to the rescue. Web Developers use a host of Firefox extensions to increase their efficiency.

Here is a list of the Firefox extensions I utilise in my day-to-day work:

ColorZilla

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/271/

Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.

With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser allows choosing colors from pre-defined color sets and saving the most used colors in custom palettes. DOM spying features allow getting various information about DOM elements quickly and easily.

Firebug

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1843/

FireBug lets you explore the far corners of the DOM by keyboard or mouse. All of the tools you need to poke, prod, and monitor your JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Ajax are brought together into one seamless experience, including a debugger, an error console, command line, and a variety of fun inspectors.

FireFTP

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684/

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

Along with transferring your files quickly and efficiently, FireFTP also includes more advanced features such as: directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SSL encryption, file hashing, and much more.

HTML Validator

http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/

HTML Validator is a Mozilla extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla.
The number of errors of a HTML page is seen on the form of an icon in the status bar when browsing.
The details of the errors are seen when looking the HTML source of the page.

The extension is based on Tidy. Tidy, was originally developed by the Web Consortium W3C. And now extended and improved by a lot of people. Tidy is embedded inside Mozilla/Firefox and makes the validation locally on your machine, without sending HTML to a third party server.

IE Tab

http://ietab.mozdev.org/

This extension embeds Internet Explorer (IE) in a Mozilla/Firefox tab, which allows you to view your work in IE without launching a separate window.

LinkChecker

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/532/

Checks the validity of links on a web page.

MeasureIt

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/539/

Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

SEO for Firefox

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

This tool was designed to add more data to Google and Yahoo! to make it easier to evaluate the value and competitive nature of a market. SEO for Firefox pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a more holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market right from the search results. In addition to pulling in useful marketing data this tool also provides links to the data sources so you can dig deeper into the data.

Server Spy

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2036/

Server Spy indicates what brand of HTTP server (eg. Apache, IIS, etc.) runs on the visited sites. When a tab is selected, the corresponding server name is shown on the right-hand side of the browser’s status bar.

Snapper

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2703/

People often take screenshots of web pages for miscellaneous reasons - when designing a page, debugging a web application, or even for graphical reference. Usually, though, only a portion of the screenshot is actually relevant to the user’s purpose, leading to a large portion of the image getting cropped. This can be time consuming, and annoying at times.

Snapper allows users to designate an area of a web page for a focused snapshot, cutting out the additional work needed for cropping unecessary information.

Web Developer

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/

http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/

The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools.

Here is a list of other extensions I find useful:

CustomizeGoogle
Gmail Space
Google Notebook
GooglePreview
SessionSaver
Tails Export

For many ColdFusion developers, server setup, tuning, troubleshooting and configuration is one of the least understood areas of ColdFusion. Achieving the highest possible performance and scalability with a ColdFusion MX application is a complex combination of many different factors. Standard performance tuning guidelines in conjunction with the tips provided below should allow you to achieve maximum application performance and scalability.

Performance refers to the response time of requests to CFML pages and Components (CFCs), whilst scalability refers to how the performance results change when the load on the server increases.

Factors Affecting Performance

• Hardware and software configuration
• Database and other external system requests
• Web server performance
• CFML application

Macromedia

• JRun 4.0: Configuring individual JVM settings for each JRun Server
• The Moment of Truth: Tuning Performance in JRun Apps and Environment
• JRun 4: General troubleshooting techniques for an unresponsive JRun server
• ColdFusion MX: Explanation of Request Timeout and threadWaitTimeout settings
• Server settings: the jrun.xml file
• ColdFusion MX: Tips for performance and scalability

Sun

• Frequently Asked Questions about Garbage Collection in the HotspotTM JavaTM Virtual Machine
• Tuning Garbage Collection with the 1.4.2 Java[tm] Virtual Machine
• Java Tuning White Paper
• jvmstat 3.0

Brandon Purcell

• ColdFusion Peformance Tuning Presentation
• Obtaining a Thread Dump with ColdFusion or JRun running as a Windows Service
• JRun Connection Closed Errors
• Performance Tuning and Monitoring Coldfusion or JRun
• Java Thread and How does it work?
• Advanced Debugging In JRun 4

Steven Erat

• Steven Erat’s blog: activeHandlerThreads or Simultaneous Requests: Less is More
• Simultaneous Requests in CFMX 7
• Keep Library Loaded - Check this box to retain the library in RAM
• SeeStack - Parse ColdFusion Thread Dumps Like a Pro!
• Request timed out waiting for an available thread to run
• Troubleshooting Tips For ColdFusion MX
• Help! My ColdFusion MX Server is Slow!!!!

Peter Freitag

• Peter Freitag’s blog: Tuning Garbage Collection Outline
• ColdFusion Garbage
• ColdFusion Memory Usage Stats
• Getting ColdFusion Server Metrics
• Have you tuned your JVM on ColdFusion MX yet?

Daemon

• Daemonite blog: Maximum JVM heap size for CFMX
• Enhancing CFMX logging

Others

• CFMX JVM Tuning - The difference between MaxPermSize and Heap Size
• Sarge’s blog: CFMX Performance Settings (JRun 50% CPU thread)
• Robi Sen’s blog: Hung Servers, Java.lang.OutOFMemory errors and Tuning CF JVM
• Misc: Java Garbage Collection Tuning
• Java Performance Tuning
• SeeFusion :: ColdFusion Server Monitoring

CFML is the name of the scripting language used by ColdFusion and several alternative server environments. It stands for ColdFusion Markup Language and is similar to HTML in appearance in that it uses tags. CFML is the code that powers ColdFusion, a program available from Adobe (formerly Macromedia), as well as such engines as BlueDragon, IgniteFusion, Railo, Coral Web Builder, DigitalLattice Orange and other web development platforms.

ColdFusion originated as proprietary technology based on Web technology industry standards. However, it is becoming a less closed technology through the availability of competing products. In fact, one could now make the argument that ColdFusion is even less platform bound than say raw J2EE or .NET, simply because ColdFusion will run on top of a .NET app server (New Atlanta), or on top of any J2EE app server (Websphere, JRun, Tomcat, etc.) In theory, you could move a ColdFusion app unchanged from a J2EE app server to a .NET app server.

Currently, alternative server platforms generally support Coldfusion MX 6.1 functionality, with minor changes or feature enhancements.

I have listed some of the alternatives in order of maturity/populrity. However, I will leave it up to you to decide which one is the best and easiest to implement. Please tell me your experiences.

BlueDragon

The BlueDragon Server family of Java-based servers (Server and Server JX) enables the stand-alone deployment of CFML. Both BlueDragon Server versions contain a built-in web server for development and testing, and each integrates with Microsoft IIS, Sun ONE/Netscape/iPlanet (JX only), and Apache web servers for deployment.

BlueDragon offers flexibility for the deployment of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) pages with native technology platform integration on the operating system, web server and database of your choice.

Visit the New Atlanta website at http://www.newatlanta.com to download the latest version of BlueDragon.

Railo

Railo is a ColdFusion Compiler for translating and executing of ColdFusion based websites. The Compiler translates the ColdFusion code into Java classes which can be executed on a Java server. Railo also comes with a runtime engine, which contains all necessary libraries for the translated code. Railo automatically detects wether to translate a ColdFusion file or when to use the runtime engine. You can compare Railo at best with JSP interfaces. JSP uses an other syntax but the main functionality is almost the same. Because Railo implements most of the JSP interfaces, it is highly compatible to JSP interfaces.

Visit the Railo website at http://www.railo.ch

IgniteFusion

IgniteFusion is a ColdFusion compatible script engine that runs ColdFusion scripts. In addition to Coldfusion CFML compatibility IgniteFusion has functionality that extends Coldfusion. Although in Beta, it is approaching release.

Visit the IgniteFusion website at http://www.ignitefusion.com to download the scripting engine.

• ColdFusion Studio, the original ColdFusion IDE, based on Allaire’s HomeSite and subsequently replaced by Dreamweaver and Homesite+ after the Macromedia takeover.
• Macromedia Homesite
• Macromedia Dreamweaver, WYSIWYG & code editor.
• CFEclipse, a ColdFusion plugin for the Eclipse IDE.

Railo is a ColdFusion Compiler for translating and executing of ColdFusion based websites. The Compiler translates the ColdFusion code into Java classes which can be executed on a Java server. Railo also comes with a runtime engine, which contains all necessary libraries for the translated code. Railo automatically detects wether to translate a ColdFusion file or when to use the runtime engine. You can compare Railo at best with JSP interfaces. JSP uses an other syntax but the main functionality is almost the same. Because Railo implements most of the JSP interfaces, it is highly compatible to JSP interfaces.

http://www.railo.ch

IgniteFusion is a ColdFusion compatible script engine that runs ColdFusion scripts. In addition to Coldfusion CFML compatibility IgniteFusion has functionality that extend Coldfusion.

http://www.ignitefusion.com/

The BlueDragon Server family of Java-based servers (Server and Server JX) enables the stand-alone deployment of CFML. Both BlueDragon Server versions contain a built-in web server for development and testing, and each integrates with Microsoft IIS, Sun ONE/Netscape/iPlanet (JX only), and Apache web servers for deployment.

BlueDragon offers flexibility for the deployment of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) pages with native technology platform integration on the operating system, web server and database of your choice.

http://www.newatlanta.com

BlueDragon is an alternative CFML engine comparable to Macromedia’s ColdFusion. It is exclusively licensed and distributed by New Atlanta from TagServlet Ltd based out of Scotland. ColdFusion is a proprietary technology based on Web technology industry standards, however, it is becoming a less closed technology through the availability of potentially competing products.

New Atlanta’s BlueDragon product, released in 2002, provides a ColdFusion MX 6.x-compatible platform to run CFML-based applications on a variety of platforms ( Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and more). While ColdFusion MX 7 offers new features not available in BlueDragon, some new features in CFMX 7 have long been in BlueDragon (such as sourceless deployment, server-based deployment on OS X, and more.)

BlueDragon 6.2 is available in four editions: BlueDragon Server and Server JX (similar to ColdFusion Standalone editions), BlueDragon for J2EE Application Servers (BD/J2EE), and BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework (BD.NET).

The first two editions are standalone servers which run on Windows, Linux, and OS X. With BD/J2EE, CFML applications can be deployed on any J2EE server, enabling integration of CFML and J2EE as enabled in CFMX. BD.NET uniquely extends the .NET framework and IIS to permit deployment of CFML applications as native .NET web applications, offering integration between CFML and ASP.NET that’s not possible with CFMX.

The Server JX, J2EE, and .NET editions of BlueDragon are commercial products which are available as 30 day unlimited trials which convert to a single-IP developer edition with no expiration. Purchase and licensing information is available on the BlueDragon site.

The Server edition, on the other hand, is free for deployment (though not for hosting, redeployment, or (as of the 6.2 release) commercial use. Intended to gain favor with those comparing to other free web application platforms, there are no differences in CFML tags supported in the free Server edition, but it supports only ODBC drivers on Windows (and only MySQL or PostgreSQL on Linux and OS X), it supports only IIS on Windows or Apache on Linux/OS X, and does not support secured (SSL) connections.

None of the limitations of the free Server edition exist in the commercial Server JX, J2EE, or .NET editions.

BlueDragon offers several advantages (tags, functions, and other functionality) not found in ColdFusion. Similarly, there are a few tags and functions found in ColdFusion that are not supported currently in BlueDragon. New Atlanta maintains a complete list of incompatibilities with Macromedia ColdFusion MX in the documentation.

The .NET edition of BlueDragon may indeed be the most compelling edition for many, since it’s something that ColdFusion MX does not support. Designed to run on Microsoft’s .NET platform, BD.NET not only enables CFML applications to leverage the powerful benefits of the .NET platform, it also opens the door to integration between CFML and ASP.NET as well as .NET objects.