One common complaint, among opponents of ColdFusion, is the poor code that's out there on the web. I would counter that there's a ton of bad code out there in most any language (I know, I've written some of it), but I do "get it". ColdFusion, as powerful a language as it can be, also has an extremely low barrier of entry. It was created in such a way that anyone who could write HTML could turn around and write an application in ColdFusion (hence the language design decision to use a tag syntax).
Well, just because you can write code in one way, that doesn't necessarily mean that you should. There are thousands upon thousands of blog posts, articles and books out there showing people how to do various things in ColdFusion. Many (not all) are cobbled together rather quickly, offering up functional examples on how to do this or that. And, while awesome that someone bothered to take that time and share that knowledge, they didn't always consider best practices in their examples. After all, it was just a quick example, right? You wouldn't just copy and paste it into your editor. You'd tailor it to your application's needs, right?
Well, no. Many of us have copied some bit of code and just dropped it in without revision. And often it just stays like that, until it causes some sort of issue. To top it all off, chances are you copied and pasted the same bits of code into other areas of your app, or even into new applications, again without revision.
So, I want to start a new series here at Cutter's Crossing. I'm going to call it "Build A Better ColdFusion App", and in each article I want to highlight some small bit of best practice advice, with some code examples that match up accordingly. It won't be a "Tip of the Day" bit or anything, and the articles may come at any time, but they'll all get a common header, and I'll try to group them together so they're easy to find. If you have suggestions for some of these tips, or topic areas you think would be a good fit, please fill out the Contact Form and drop me a note with your suggestions.
By The Way: I'm not perfect. I might put up something and it's hosed too, or you might have suggestions on how to do it differently and/or better. Please, call me on it. We're a community of professionals, and want to put out info of value for any and all.
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