Take this scenario. A company I once worked for had what can be described as a business directory built upon a licensed, yet bastardised, version of a popular ColdFusion-based CMS. It didn’t work that well! The decision was made to redevelop the application in Java. It took two years to reach the same level of functionality! What happened next? Ruby-on-Rails is what! The rest is history and beyond the topic of this post.

So, in effect, the application almost went full-circle in its development paradigm — both ColdFusion and Ruby-on-Rails can be considered Rapid Application Development environments, Java, certainly not. Why did the decision makers not stick with ColdFusion and put time aside to actually build it properly in the first place? To put it simply, they lost faith in ColdFusion; it was largely mis-understood.

The weakness of every programming language does not lie with the language itself per se — albeit it can have an important influencing factor — but rather with the ability, or indeed inability, of the developer to leverage the language in the most efficient and optimal way.

ColdFusion, like every other programming language has had and I’m sure still does have its fair share of poor developers; those people simply working with it as a means-to-an-end, rather than those passionate about the language, those people programming without understanding the fundamentals of programming or the implications of their poorly written code. This is apparent from .NET to Java, ColdFusion to Ruby, JavaScript to ActionScript.

Let’s not dilly-dally, bicker or insult one another about which is best, which one is dying and which one is not worth the computer it is compiled on. What is important is to understand the merits of each language and decide which one best suits the application, not only in technical terms, but also in terms of time-to-market, cost of development, availability of a skilled workforce etc.

ColdFusion, whether rightly or wrongly in some people’s opinion, can sit proudly amongst its peers and provide a truly compelling alternative.

Here’s how (in no particular order):

1. Low Total Cost of Ownership - to put it bluntly, if your company cannot afford the cost of ColdFusion standard, or indeed ColdFusion hosting, you have bigger things to worry about regarding the profitability of the company; you won’t be able to afford much of anything! The problem becomes not the product. ColdFusion developers are vastly cheaper to employ than their peers in Java or Ruby, just look at ITJobsWatch for examples.
2. Rapid Application Development - ColdFusion vastly simplifies tasks. What would take other languages numerous lines of code to produce is efficiently encapsulated either in a tag or function or as a setting in the administrator. This is a simplistic yet indicative example: where else can you connected to a database simply with one line of code or indeed simply by name? ColdFusion changed the idea of specifying development time in terms of months and years to weeks and months or small features a matter of hours and days. Simplicity is not the mother or all evil. To be pragmatic, simplification reduces costs.
3. Rich Internet Applications - ColdFusion may or may not have pioneered the RIA paradigm, but it has played a significant supporting role to Flash and now Flex. ColdFusion natively supports Flash remoting, providing the all important data access tier.
4. Platform Maturity - ColdFusion 8 is built upon the latest version of Java (1.6). Along with internal improvements to the ColdFusion application, this has afforded ColdFusion unprecedented speed improvements and stability.
5. Language Maturity - with each major release of ColdFusion comes many language enhancements added to the core. This means that previous addons, for example image manipulation, which came at a premium are now standard. Adobe and other companies that produce CFML engines are now participating in a CFML advisory committee, which aims to set standards for the core language. This is not only a sign of maturity but a letter of intent by the industry that will mean your application will work on any engine, assuming no proprietary functionality is used.
6. The Ultimate Middleware - ColdFusion sits comfortably between any backend and front end system. Be it interfacing with a host of databases, Java, .NET, COM, Corba or connecting to classic HTML or rich Flash, Flex and AJAX frontends with little or no configuration.
7. Feature Rich - what other web technology natively supports PDF generation, charting, enterprise-level search, AJAX, image manipulation, Atom and RSS creation, Zip and JAR file manipulation, a server monitor, Flex integration, encryption libraries, all important database connectors, webservice creation, XML manipulation, inbuilt reporting application (similar to Crystal Reports), email, FTP to name but a few? I hazard a guess at none, unless you’re happy to pay a premium.
8. Platform Independent - since ColdFusion 6, when Macromedia redeveloped the entire application in Java, ColdFusion has been platform independent. You can install it on practically any machine.
9. OpenSource Alternatives - BlueDragon and Railo are both significant alternatives to Adobe ColdFusion and both have opensource alternatives, the latter of the two having recently joined the JBoss community. Adobe are also considering providing a free edition to academic institutions.
10. The Future - many commentators have mentioned Hibernate as a significant addition to the next release of ColdFusion, version 9. But having seen the prerelease notes, that is not all that will be added. Alas I’m under NDA, but rest assured, there is going to be a significant intake of breath when developers get hold of the next release. ColdFusion 8 was firmly geared towards middle management with fuzzy additions, ColdFusion 9 is set to re-address the balance with compelling language and functionality enhancements.

ColdFusion evangelism needs to step up a gear! Adobe certainly doesn’t afford much marketing budget to the product, prefering The Community do the hard work. It is not always easy convincing the decision makers that ColdFusion is a good product of choice, without Adobe’s unnerving support, but we have to work hard, break down those barriers, encroach on events outside the comfortable sphere of the ColdFusion world and demonstrate ColdFusion’s match-winning ability.

ColdFusion isn’t dying, it’s simply niche. Every niche has its place.

UPDATE: If you would like to view the ensuing debate regarding ColdFusion prompted by Aral Balkan, feel free to do so. This post should serve as a positive reminder of ColdFusion’s virtues, alongside the need for a balanced and polite debate.

Eclipse started out as a Java IDE and has continually grown from there. Plugins now include, amongst a plethora of others, the venerable Aptana, CFEclipse, SQL Explorer, Subclipse and, more recently, the Adobe-developed Flex Builder and ColdFusion-equivalent codenamed Bolt.

Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is implemented using the Java language, requires the Java platform, and was originally developed to automate the build of Java projects. However, since Ant was created as a simple, platform-independent tool, it can really be used to automate the build of anything you choose.

Ant uses XML to describe the build process and its dependencies, using a file commonly called build.xml. Using this file, Ant makes it trivial to integrate unit testing frameworks with the build process and has made it easy for web developers to adopt test-driven development, and even Extreme Programming.

Fortunately for us, if you download and run Eclipse, you already have Ant installed and so do not have any complex configuration to concern yourself with; well, at least initially.

Setting Up Eclipse

For the most part, Eclipse has all you need to get up and running with Ant pre-installed. However, most projects will include a release target which uses FTP to upload the files to a live server. The FTP ant task requires some extra libraries (.jar files):

commons-net-*.jar
jakarta-oro-*.jar

(The library files can be downloaded from here).

Copy the files into the ant lib folder of your Eclipse install. The folder is commonly located here:

C:\Program Files\Eclipse\plugins\org.apache.ant_*\lib

(The asterix * refers to the Ant version).

Next, go to Window > Preferences and select Ant > Runtime. In the Classpath tab, select Ant Home Entries, click Add External JARs… and select the 2 files you copied to the ant lib folder.

A Typical Ant Project Setup

A project with ant build scripts should have the following within the repository:

• build.xml (the actual ant build script)
• build.properties.template (a template for individual build.properties files)
• an optional top level lib folder (containing jar files for external ant tasks)

Examples of the build.xml and build.properties.template files can be downloaded from here.

Create Your Own build.properties File

Make a copy of the build.properties.template file (name it build.properties) and set the values to fit your local setup (in most cases, the only property you may want to change is deploy.dir.local which is the path to the site on your local machine).

This file should never be committed to the repository (the repository should be set to ignore it anyway).

Basic Build Tasks

The build file should have a deploy.local task. This task builds the project and copies it to your local webserver (the path to the web server folder will be defined in the build.properties file).

Most projects should also have a deploy.dev task to copy the latest work to the dev server so that other people can view it.

Setting Up an Automatic Build

To make things easy, you can set deploy.local to run every time you save a file. This is called an automatic build.

The process for setting up automatic build is quite convoluted. I’m not sure why but this is the best way I’ve found to make it work.

Step 1: Add the build file to your ant view

Click the add button and select the build.xml file from the project. You can also drag the build.xml file onto the ant view (To add the ant view to your perpective, go to Window > Show View > Other…)

Step 2: Run as Ant Build

In your ant view, right click the newly added build file and select Run As > Ant Build… In the dialog window, select the ‘Hide internal targets not selected for execution’ option in the Targets tab. You can rename the builder in the box at the top of the window if you wish (I usually remove the trailing ‘build.xml’. Click Apply and Close.

Step 3: Setup automatic build

Right click on the project, select Properties, then Builders. Click Import… and select the builder you created in step 2. Go to the Targets tab select clean for ‘After a clean’ and deploy.local for ‘Auto build’. Apply and close.

Step 4: Enable Auto Build

Go to Project > Build Automatically

Acknowledgment: Thanks should go to Martin Laine for his help and guidance which resulted in this article.

Virtually every single one of our international sports were invented or codified by the British. And I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts, who have excelled so magnificently at Ping-pong. Ping-pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called Wiff-waff! And there, I think, you have the difference between us and the rest of the world. Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner; we looked at it an saw an opportunity to play Wiff-waff. And I say to the Chinese, and to the world, that Ping-pong is coming home!

1. Precedent (who’s done it already and how?);
2. External data;
3. Internal data and knowledge; and,
4. Educated guesses

No. 4 is most valuable. After all, all the research in the world won’t tell you how to design it.

(Source: Cameron Moll)

For example, the following is WordPress’ default URL configuration for a post:

http://www.domain.com/?p=1635

However, buy using a URL-rewriting available in the Apache webserver, we can achieve a far better result, such as the following:

http://www.domain.com/search-engine-safe-urls

NB. It is also possible to achieve a similar result with an ISAPI rewrite for Microsoft’s IIS webserver, but this topic will not be included in this post.

To get your website working with SES URLs you need to enable both the mod_rewite module and AllowOverride directive in the Apache configuration file.

Uncomment (remove #) from the following to enable the re-write rule:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Change the AllowOverride directive from none to all

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
</Directory>
 
<Directory "C:/WebRoot">
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
 
    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All
 
    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

On Apache webservers, .htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of directory-level configuration files. An .htaccess file is placed in a particular directory, and the directives in the .htaccess file apply to that directory, and all its subdirectories. It provides the ability to customize configuration for requests to the particular directory. In our case, enabling search engine safe (SES) URLs.

By setting the AllowOverride directive to All in effect defers configuration settings to the .htaccess file.

An example .htaccess file could include the following code to rewrite the URLs:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]

Search engine friendly URLs are implemented with Rewrite engines. The rewrite engine modifies the URL based upon a number of rewrite conditions and rules.

The RewriteBase directive explicitly sets the base URL for per-directory rewrites. The RewriteCond directive defines a rule condition, so in this case handling missing files or directories. Finally, the RewriteRule directive is the real rewriting workhorse. In this example, we’re getting everything in the URI — i.e. not including the protocol (HTTP/S) and domain name — based upon a regular expression. This is then appended to the default file reference — index.php — as a back reference. The [L,QSA] refers to the rule being the last rule and append any query string parameters to the default file. It is important to note that this is all done on the server side, the user will never see the website address changing in the browser’s address bar. Furthermore, simply transposing the index.php filename with your default file name — e.g. index.cfm, default.aspx — will have the same result. Indeed, the above rewrite rules are becoming a de-facto standard for web applications.

To fully understand mod_rewrite rules above, look at the Apache mod_rewrite documentation.

Once you have your SES functionality in place on the webserver, it is then the responsibility of your application framework to understand the URL construction and handle it accordingly. Fortunately, frameworks such as ColdBox and Fusebox for ColdFusion, Zend and Symfony for PHP, all contain functionality to do this, but that is the subject of an entirely different post.

Users of web applications prefer short, neat URLs to raw query string parameters. A concise URL is easy to remember, and less time-consuming to type in. If the URL can be made to relate clearly to the content of the page, then errors are not only less likely to happen, but our good friends the search engine robots are able to draw a stronger assumption of the pages’ relevance and content.

The two European con-artists use non-conventional communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with minimal effort. Past works have included staging a hoax involving a completely made up artist, to ripping off the Holy See and spreading a computer virus!

In It’s Always Six O’Clock, the avatar portraits in their series Annoying Japanese Child Dinosaur are attacked by an army of toys, not the digital representations but the real deal this time. From Nintendo and Disney characters to G.I. Joe and Manga, and from medieval knights to Winnie the Pooh, they’re all performing in the theatre of pop culture. Somehow cute yet ruthlessly aggressive at times — Winnie the Pooh appears to be having his head split open — they dominate the exhibition space. In the process, fantasy and collective imagination are fusing into a dramatically charged form of ready-made sculpture.

(Click on the images to see a larger view)

You can see more of their work on their website, 0100101110101101.org.

But what makes up a web community; what makes them successful? Below I discuss the four C’s of community: Content, Context, Connectivity and Community.

Content

A current meme when organising or building a website is the catchphrase Content is King. A big shift in the web in recent years has been the way websites are constructed. Today it’s a necessity, and indeed best practice, to separate form from content. In one hand you have the compelling content, whilst in the other you have the presentation, be it in the form of HTML and CSS, Flash or RSS, amongst others.

Quality content is one way in which you can make your website stand out. It is also a great way to attract the people who are needed to form the elusive community that your brand is hoping build. When considering community initiatives, there are three questions to ask: Where will the content come from; for example community driven or syndication? Does it provide indisputable value; does it have a unique selling point (USP)? Can a regular flow of quality content be maintained? Even pre-Web 2.0 initiatives have to focus on keeping the content itself fresh and relevant.

Web accessibility and search engine optimisation are also vital, so having content completely separated from presentation means a number of assistive technologies can make better use of the content, whilst the web robots can also readily consume the information.

Context

Context means understanding how people use your website, where they are in the user-journey and serving them the right experience at the right time. Well-designed applications and functionality have great opportunities to deliver on context.

For example, FriendFeed’s iPhone version, which is simply a re-worked web interface, is perfectly designed for contextual usage on the go. Similarly, Remember The Milk updates the interface explicitly for mobile and iPhone users, whilst also syndicating the content to applications such as Google Calendar. (It is questionable whether user-agent switching is good practice, but that is a whole new blog post.) Conversely, Delicious makes no attempt at changing the user interface for iPhone or Nokia N95 users since the iPhone and N95 have full web-capabilities through their respective web browsers.

In some instances the context in which the content is displayed will require reduced functionality. For example, the Last.fm mobile site does not allow you to play music, but simply search music listings, view recommendations, events and friend listings, and edit settings. However, through its API, Last.fm is able to offer its data and platform to third party developers to aid the building of new applications and communities, thus changing its context.

Connectivity

Connectivity is the ability of a system, whether that is a web-based community or a device like the iPhone, to connect with little or no modification. In the realm of communities, the ability to easily connect to your peers is the Holy Grail of the application.

Successful communities thrive on fluid, hard-to-measure activities that are, in the purest sense, relationship-based. It’s not all about mass communications — although Twitter and YouTube are both bucking this trend — but more about the micro-interactions. Designing experiences that support thousands of micro-interactions means that the community is able to function, unhindered, almost indefinitely. Facebook lends itself expertly to micro-interactions through the user’s ‘wall’.

Companies are turning to communities as the new customer relationship management (CRM), but this requires people to mind them. Organisations such as 37Signals and WildBit very effectively use Twitter to broadcast service updates and sometimes apologies, whilst the BBC and The Guardian online use it to broadcast links to new content.

Continuity

People often don’t like change, but communities that thrive often do so though evolution to meet the needs of users. Communities need to be flexible to evolve while still providing a valuable and consistent user experience which can be sustained. Too much of a radical change will almost certainly have a detrimental impact upon visits, at least initially.

Building communities is the new marketing for a brand, whether that is through wholely-owned properties or 3rd party social media services such as Twitter, WordPress or Ning. The starting point to any community is finding a niche that is currently underserved and serving that community better than anyone else. But Brands need to know a few things before they head down the community path. The web is saturated with communities. Some are thriving, while others have come and gone. Creating a community is not like your average marketing campaign that you can ditch it is a failure. If the community is successful the four C’s of content, contect, connectivity and continuity will have to be maintained and indeed, developed.

For the seasoned Flex developer, we’ve been accustomed to using the Flex Component Explorer as a reference. However, this is set to change with a great new application called Tour de Flex.

Tour de Flex is a desktop application, built using AIR, with the goal of providing a way to explore Flex’s capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR and data integration.

Created by James Ward, Greg Wilson and Christophe Coenraets, Tour de Flex has three main purposes: provide non-Flex developers with an overview of what is possible; provide seasoned Flex developers with a visual reference tool; and finally, provide commercial and non-commercial Flex developers a platform to showcase their skills.

Probably the greatest feature of this application is the integration of a variety of third-party components, effects and skins. The application contains examples from the following and we are told that this list will be regularly updated when new content becomes available:

• Acrobat.com Share
• Amazon
• AOL Instant Messenger
• Cocomo
• Ebay
• Flickr
• Google Language
• Intuit Quickbase
• Last.fm
• Photoshop.com
• Salesforce.com
• Scribd
• Smugmug
• Twitter
• Yahoo Weather

Below is a selection of screenshots from the application:

(Click on the images to see a larger view)

Included with the Tour de Flex project is an Eclipse plugin, built by Holly Schinsky, that provides a search interface to the 200+ examples available in the main Tour de Flex application. The plugin allows you to search by component name, tag or author and double-click any item in the results to immediately see the component in Tour de Flex.

To install the plugin, add the following URL to your Eclipse software update sites:

http://tourdeflex.adobe.com/eclipse.

Once installed, a new Tour de Flex view is available to add. The plugin has been tested with Eclipse 3.4 and with Flex Builder 3.x.

The official Tour de Flex page and install can be found on the Flex.org website.

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto designed the wooden bungalow to be small and primitive. The design is meant to highlight the versatility of lumber.

In an ordinary wooden architecture, lumber is effectively differentiated according to functions in various localities precisely because it is so versatile. Columns, beams, foundations, exterior walls, interior walls, ceilings, floorings, insulations, furnishings, stairs, window frames, meaning all, says Fujimoto. However, I thought if lumber is indeed so versatile then why not create architecture by one rule that fulfills all of these functions. I envisioned the creation of new spatiality that preserves primitive conditions of a harmonious entity before various functions and roles differentiated.

Using large beams of 350 mm square profile cedar and piled on top of one another, Fujimoto created the walls, ceiling, floors and built in nooks. This leaves no definitive lines between each of the structure’s components, thus blending the entire interior of the space together. The function of the small home is defined by how the user adapts to the wood structure. The house is meant to bring a kind of harmony between the built environment and the way the human body behaves within the space.

I thought of making an ultimate wooden architecture. It was conceived by just mindlessly stacking 350mm square.

(Click on the images to see a larger view)

Fujimoto continues, There are no separations of floor, wall, and ceiling here. A place that one thought was a floor becomes a chair, a ceiling, a wall from various positions. The floor levels are relative and spatiality is perceived differently according to one’s position. Here, people are distributed three-dimensionally in the space. This is a place like an amorphous landscape with a new experience of various senses of distances. Inhabitants discover, rather than being prescribed, various functionalities in these convolutions.

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Location: Kumamoto, Japan
Photographer: Iwan Baan

Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), a disability is defined as:

A physical or mental impairment that has a long-term or substantial effect on a person’s ability to carry out day to day tasks.

This ranges from people with physical and sensory impairments to people with diabetes, disfigurements, heart disease and epilepsy.

Accessibility, therefore, can be viewed as the “ability to access” the functionality of a system or entity. Furthermore, accessibility is a somewhat general term used to describe the degree to which a product (e.g. device, service and environment) is accessible to as many people as possible. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology.

A dimension of accessibility is web accessibility. Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality. In many countries this has led to initiatives, laws and regulations that aim toward providing universal access to the internet.

Digital Web Magazine has a great article on whether accessibility statements are useful, which is well worth a read.

The main points of consideration that can be garnered from the article are as follows:

1. Make the accessibility link prominent and provide it in a consistent location so that website visitors can find it easily.
2. Provide rich content that explains how to use the accessibility features provided, rather than just listing the features themselves.
3. Separate the content into sections and provide headings for each section.
4. Provide contact information in various formats so that website visitors can directly contact the team responsible for accessibility queries.
5. Actively promote feedback from website visitors. Use comments to continually improve the website.
6. Provide a known barriers section which details inaccessible areas of the website along with alternative ways of obtaining the information or services.
7. List technical and conformance information at the end of the accessibility statement. This will allow the information to be readily available, whilst not being placed in a prominent position.

Your accessibility statement will be organic — you may only start with a few lines but as your site develops in terms of accessibility, and your understanding of the accessibility of the site develops, so will your statement. As it can often be created and then forgotten about, it is worthwhile taking time every so often to check through the statement to ensure that it is up-to-date and reflects the work done to enhance the site’s accessibility.