In my last post I showed the raw code that you would need to call the Illudium PU-36 Code Generator outside of it's Flex front-end. That code is just ripe for abstraction. Really all you want is an object with a method signature that takes maybe a com-path, datasource, and table name and does the work of generating the CFCs for you right? OK, now that we're all agreed. The CFC is attached in a zip (just click the "download" link down yonder).

So now you know why I needed a database abstraction system. You also know that I chose the Illudium PU-36 Code Generator because of it's templating system. Having the templating system gave me full control to generate exactly the kind of CFCs that I wanted. I'll go over some of the ways that I modified the stock templates in another post in this series.

I wrote a bit ago about using Brian Rinaldi's Illudium PU-36 Code Generator for a project at work. There was actually a pretty good response to the post. And people seemed interested in how I was using Illudium (outside of it's Flex front-end). So, this will be the first post in a series about building a database abstraction system. So, what was the impetus for all of this? I work on a massive Fusebox 3 application. A large portion of it was written before CFMX.

We've been really busy at work for years. A lot of the time it feels like a grind. But, yesterday, I really enjoyed myself. I have been working on a project that will get us started on using CFCs for our database access. I know, I know. We're a little late for that train, huh... Well, a huge portion of our application was already written in the FB3 framework before CFCs even existed. That's a lot of procedural momentum.

OK. For the A.D.D. crowd, here it is in a nutshell: Don't use CFTHREAD in a high-traffic scenario. For everyone else here's the story... We recently rolled out a complete make-over to our Inventory Display UI. This included a page that lists out a typical slide-show/gallery widget. Because the page is using a custom CFX tag we have to handle on-demand photo resizing (which it then caches the path to), the developer on the project used CFTHREAD around the thumbnail generation.

A lot of us in our ColdFusion jobs create reports with aggregate numbers in them. Most of the time, you can pull the first level of the aggregates from the database. Then, often there are secondary aggregates that are usually based on the first set. A common example would be a report that has counts of sales by salesperson. This report would usually have a total of sales at the bottom.

I am going to be the Senior Architect for our ASP model software package at work. I have been cranking out features where I work for years now. It has been full-steam ahead the whole time. It is the busiest job I have ever worked. A very large portion of our application was written in FB3 right before ColdFusion MX came out. There's nothing wrong with that if you only want an HTML front end. The code is fairly clean and well-organized.

For you people who want "just the facts ma'am". Q. Where is the file or folder that I thought I created in Vista under the "C:\Program Files\[My_App]" folder? A. It is under "C:\Users\[your_account]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\[My_App]". This is because Vista doesn't think that you should write to your "Program Files" folder, so it tricks your programs into writing into the "VirtualStore". Now, to the story if you're bored and wonder why I know this...

Last post I went over simple instruction for creating a Derby datasource under CF8. So, I am just going to admit it... I am a GUI kind of guy. So, the first thing I wanted after I created a Derby database was a visual client to connect to and manage that database. I had heard SQuirreL mentioned on Ben's blog. So, I'm using that. The instructions found here will get you up and running with just a couple of notes.

I know other people blogged this. But, I'm working on BlogCFC Apache Derby Support. So, I want to chronicle the steps as I go. From the "Add New Data Source" form on the data source screen in the CF8 Administrator, select the "Apache Derby Embedded" driver. Enter a name for your data source and hit "Add". On the next screen enter the same name in the Database Folder field. Click the button to "Show Advanced Settings". Enter "create=true" into the "Connection String" field. Submit the form.