ken.auenson.com

This is the second session for me on Day 1 @ CFUnited 2008.
This session was renamed “ColdFusion 8 and AJAX Part Deux” and was presented by Ray Camden (who has lost a lot of weight and is looking good!).
You can find the presentation over at Ray’s blog.

I got to this presentation a bit late.
When I arrived, Ray was discussing “plumbing”.

• Plumbing
  • XML
    • use toXML.cfc to generate XML
    • Ray gave a helpful hint that you should use Java’s StringBuffer for working with larger text, in place of a regular CFSet.
  • JSON
    • native in CF 8 (serializeJSON)
    • don’t serialize a CFC
    • queries get funky w/ deserialize
  • CFCs
    • returnFormat
      • clarifies return behavior; plain, JSON, WDDX
    • service proxies
      • handle loading app/session CFCs
  • onRequest
    • Evil Incarnate – avoid using if at all possible
• Performance
  • JSON > XML
• Debugging
  • Ajax Debugger
  • Firebug
  • Logging
  • ColdFusion Debugger

This was a great presentation. This is specifically the kind of preso that I come to CFUnited for.
I know how to use AJAX to make something work, but a presentation like this one makes me question the way I do things, and ask questions. Why did I do it this way, why not that way? etc.
There is also a bit of “Lessons Learned” and best practices shared here as well.
Ray wasn’t saying “You must do it this way”, but rather… I tried to do it that way, and that blew up in my face. What you really need to do is this…

Thanks Ray!