2020-03-31 Weekly News - Episode 47

Watch the video version on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NnzwvdWDUsM

Hosts:

Brad Wood - Senior Developer for Ortus Solutions
Gavin Pickin - Software Consultant for Ortus Solutions



Thanks to our Sponsor - Ortus Solutions
Get trained by the actual makers of the ColdBox Platform, CommandBox, TestBox and ContentBox Modular CMS. We offer on-site training, regional training seminars and virtual live training as well. We have several professional training courses to choose from and we can also cater to a-la-carte trainings as well.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/services/training


Patreon Support

We are at the 41% mark for fully funding all of our Modernize or Die Podcasts via our Patreon site: patreon.com/ortussolutions . If you love our podcasts and all we do for the #coldfusion #cfml community consider chipping in, we are almost there!
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/we-need-your-help



News and Events



Lucee Announcing Lucee 5.3.5.92 (final) and 5.3.4.80 (hotfix)

First, here’s a big picture update about recent development efforts. First, regarding the previous final release of Lucee–5.3.4.77–most folks by now have noticed there was a “silent release,” and in fact the latest final build of 5.3.4 is 5.3.4.80. This was actually a hotfix, which ended up being related to some especially challenging ongoing bugs, which we’d thought we’d fixed by 5.3.4.77, but hadn’t. Thus, working closely with the community, and in particular a couple of member organizations who really help a ton with iterative testing, we decided the fixes were important enough to warrant a hotfix release, which came out very quickly (~ 2 weeks) after the original final build. So quickly, in fact, that we got behind on a formal post about it (that’s on me; apologies!). In parallel, we were working on finalizing the latest 5.3.5 release candidate. We found some regressions during the RC period, and in addition, many of the 5.3.4 hotfixes made it into 5.3.5 as well. Details on both final builds are below.

https://dev.lucee.org/t/announcing-lucee-5-3-5-92-final-and-5-3-4-80-hotfix/6801



Adobe CF2020 -  No more GUI based installers for ColdFusion next? – Need your feedback

Many of you may have also heard about some of the changes that we are making to the product, such as reducing the overall size of the installer to around 200 MB. We are able to accomplish this because we are breaking the CF runtime into tiny modules that can be installed on demand whenever needed.
https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/03/no-gui-based-installers-coldfusion-next-need-feedback/



cbSecurity 2.3 Released

We are excited to bring you another release for cbSecurity packed with security goodness: version 2.3.0. This version focuses on security contexts from ANY layer of a ColdBox application. It will also enhance your functional skills as well, as it introduces some nice semantics for securing your code.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/cbsecurity-23-released



Qb v7.6.0 is released

Small quality of life improvements.
https://qb.ortusbooks.com/whats-new#7-6-0



CBGuard v4.1.1 is released

cbguard now allows you to check for authorization at any point in the request lifecycle using the Guard@cbguard component.
https://www.forgebox.io/view/cbguard



ColdBox 6 Beta is close

Luis has been working on the RestController in ColdBox 6.
Beta could be out as early as next week!!!



What's New In CommandBox 5  Screencast Series - Library Updates

Learn about the new libraries in CommandBox and how to determine the current version of Lucee that your CLI is running.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/whats-new-in-commandbox-5-library-updates


Matthew Clementes CommandBox Screencast and Live Stream Series

Matthew has done 4 live streams, and released 2 other screencasts already. Usually streams Wednesday at 8:30PM EST
Subscribe to keep up to date with his latest videos and streams.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC09HBVzOOyx1bdgRgo2CB4A



ContentBox CMS Customer Experience Survey

ContentBox, our signature professional open-source modular content management system for ColdFusion (CFML),  recently celebrated 8 years in the market. For sure, it has been a solid base for many companies to easily build websites, blogs, wikis, complex web applications, and RESTFul web services.
We are ramping up our planning for our next generation of the ContentBox platform and we need your feedback.
Please take some time to let us know your opinion, so we can start cooking some CMS goodness!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScs2sbby0zLu6kJSQA_VqT5-ZGYsLpCI7IRgJMepxPk-BG8gw/viewform



Upcoming Adobe Webinar - Journey through the Adobe ColdFusion Performance Monitoring Tool

Presenter: Elishia Dvorak
April 9th, 11am PDT
This session is all about demos, no slides! From start to finish, we’ll take you through the nitty gritty of troubleshooting and setting yourself up in Adobe’s ColdFusion Performance Monitoring Tool to troubleshoot the main issues that keep you awake at night. We’ll run through setting up different types of notifications, threshold settings, auto tuning, and even some simulations to give you a good sense of how the PMT can help you diagnose your craziest ColdFusion issues.
https://cfwebinar-journey-pmt.meetus.adobeevents.com/




In case you missed it - Adobe Webinar - Microservices Architecture: Trends and Challenges
Presenter: Elishia Dvorak
March 25th, 9am PDT
In this session we’ll focus our discussion on microservices trends, architecture, and challenges. The reality for most of us is that our applications have organically grown over the years and exist today in different states. We typically inherit a hybrid of monolith with the addition of services and integrated disparate systems. Much of the time we do not have the opportunity to start from the ground up, rather build from a certain point for modernization and future growth. The ability to completely modernize and decouple the entire architecture is limited by resources and budget constraints among other factors. In this session we’ll review some of the current trends in microservices architecture with a focus on existing application transformation and challenges.
Register and view recording: https://cfwebinar-trends.meetus.adobeevents.com/




In case you missed it - Fusion Reactor Webinar - Installing FusionReactor in dynamic environments

25 March - 3PM EST - 7PM UTC
This session will cover how to automate the installation of FusionReactor via Docker and CommandBox as well as answer any questions you may have related to the install of FusionReactor.
With special guest: Brad Wood
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPpjVv5E4G4&feature=youtu.be



In case you missed it - Ortus Webinar - CBElasticSearch with Michael Born

March 27th at 11:00 AM EST (GMT -5:00)
with Michael Born
Recording: https://vimeo.com/401389214
More Ortus Webinars: https://www.ortussolutions.com/events/webinars



Reminder: State of the CF Union 2020 Survey

VOTE FOR OUR PODCASTS

Help us find out the state of the CF Union – what versions of CFML Engine do people use, what frameworks, tools etc. We will share the summary results with everyone who completes the survey so that you can see how you compare with other CF developers.
Most questions are multiple choice checkboxes that are fast to answer. Thanks for your time completing this survey!
https://teratech.com/state-of-the-cf-union-2020/



Conferences


Adobe CF Summit East 2020 - Cancelled
https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/CFSummit2020/


Adobe - ColdFusion Specialist Certification POST Conference - CANCELLED
https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/CFSummit2020/Custom?id=3408


Ortus Solutions - Build Secure MVC ColdFusion Applications - Pre Conference - Cancelled
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/ortus-solutions-dc-workshop-is-cancelled-due-to-covid-19-concerns



Into the Box 2020 - Virtual Online Conference

The conference will take place on the same days, with the same schedule, all online.
Sessions will be streamed live and recorded so attendees can watch all the sessions, even the sessions they cannot attend.

Keynote will be streamed live for free.
The conference tickets are $199 ( massive discount from the in person conference )
Register now: https://intothebox.org/

Previous ITB Videos on Sale
Can’t wait for this year’s ITB, you can watch videos from last year and the year before for price of $9.99 each.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/itb2019
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/intothebox2018

Workshops
Workshops are being refunded and will be scheduled at later times to give everyone an opportunity to attend one or more workshops as they are delivered online.



DockerCon - Live

May 28, 2020 : 9:00 - 5:00 PM GMT-7 (PDT)
DockerCon is going digital with theCUBE! We’ve designed a 1-day conference that’s free and completely online. You’ll hear from speakers in live interviews with theCUBE, hang out with Docker experts in the live hallway track, and watch recorded sessions while chatting live with the speakers.
Choose from 3 simultaneously streaming channels or jump between them all to experience DockerCon your way.
https://www.docker.com/dockercon/

CF Summit West
TBA

CF Camp
TBA

More conferences: https://confs.tech/



Blogs, Tweets and Videos of the Week


Blog - Ben Nadel - Exploring The Power Of Multiple Cursors And Selections In Sublime Text 3
For the past few years, I've been using - and loving - the Sublime Text (ST3) editor. In fact, I find it so enjoyable, that I've never even looked at any of the new editors that seem to be gaining popularity. One of the Sublime Text features that I couldn't live without is the ability to use multiple cursors and mutate multiple selections at the same time. I know this isn't a proprietary feature of Sublime Text; but, I find that it gives me a massive productivity boost in my day-to-day software development. As such, I thought it would be fun to explore the multi-cursor / multi-selection features more in-depth.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3798-exploring-the-power-of-multiple-cursors-and-selections-in-sublime-text-3.htm


Blog - Fusion Reactor - 5 things you should check every day to ensure your application health
The notification email address is where FusionReactor will send the daily, weekly and monthly reports to and is also the email used to send crash protection notifications. If you have not done this already, it’s very important to set this up as soon as possible.
Configure your mail settings within the FusionReactor settings page. Then do these 5 things everyday.
http://www.fusion-reactor.com/news/5-things-you-should-check-every-day-to-ensure-your-application-health/


Tweet - @nerdvision - New product from the makers of Fusion-Reactor
Find bugs faster in @Adobe @coldfusion  - Free, simple, collaborative debugging nerd.vision #CFML
https://twitter.com/NerdVision/status/1243539784775106560
https://twitter.com/NerdVision


Blog - Ben Nadel - Putting DEBUG Comments In Your SQL Statements Makes FusionReactor Query Tracing More Effective
For years, I've been advocating that people put DEBUG comments in their SQL statements to help identify performance bottlenecks in their applications. I feel so strongly about this that I'm absolutely nonplussed whenever I see a SQL query show-up in the MySQL slow-log or the process-list without a DEBUG statement. Recently, we installed FusionReactor at work; and, I was thrilled to see that my DEBUG statements were showing up in the database profiling that FusionReactor provides.
… I'd be surprised if other ORMs don't offer some means to either add comments directly; or, a way to extend the ORM with said functionality.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3797-putting-debug-comments-in-your-sql-statements-makes-fusionreactor-query-tracing-more-effective.htm


Blog - Ben Nadel - Deleting Data From A Table Using An INNER JOIN DELETE Query In MySQL 5.6.37
Earlier this week, I took a look at using an INNER JOIN within an UPDATE statement in MySQL in order to copy data from one table to another. To complement that post, I wanted to take a quick look at how an INNER JOIN can also be used in a DELETE statement to allow for the deleting of records that are constrained by a cross-table relationship in MySQL 5.6.37.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3796-deleting-data-from-a-table-using-an-inner-join-delete-query-in-mysql-5-6-37.htm


Blog - Lucee - Announcing Lucee 5.3.5.92 (final) and 5.3.4.80 (hotfix)
First, here’s a big picture update about recent development efforts. First, regarding the previous final release of Lucee–5.3.4.77–most folks by now have noticed there was a “silent release,” and in fact the latest final build of 5.3.4 is 5.3.4.80. This was actually a hotfix, which ended up being related to some especially challenging ongoing bugs, which we’d thought we’d fixed by 5.3.4.77, but hadn’t. Thus, working closely with the community, and in particular a couple of member organizations who really help a ton with iterative testing, we decided the fixes were important enough to warrant a hotfix release, which came out very quickly (~ 2 weeks) after the original final build. So quickly, in fact, that we got behind on a formal post about it (that’s on me; apologies!). In parallel, we were working on finalizing the latest 5.3.5 release candidate. We found some regressions during the RC period, and in addition, many of the 5.3.4 hotfixes made it into 5.3.5 as well. Details on both final builds are below.
https://dev.lucee.org/t/announcing-lucee-5-3-5-92-final-and-5-3-4-80-hotfix/6801


Blog - Pete Freitag - 6 ways to stay connected with other CF developers
Looking for a few ways to stay connected with other ColdFusion developers? Here's a few of my favorites:
https://www.petefreitag.com/item/896.cfm


Blog - Ben Nadel - Array.Sort() Operator Must Return INT-Sized Result In Lucee CFML 5.3.4.80
A few weeks ago, I wrote about using Subtraction to power the Array Sort operator in Lucee CFML. This has become my go-to approach for sorting arrays. However, yesterday, I ran into an edge-case in which Subtraction was throwing an error. It turns out, the number returned from the array.sort() operator has to fit into a Java int in Lucee CFML 5.3.4.80.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3795-array-sort-operator-must-return-int-sized-result-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-4-80.htm


Blog - Ben Nadel - Now Using utf8mb4 To Enable Emoji In My Comments
This post is mostly here so that I can test the comment feature in production. I just updated my blog_comment table to use the utf8mb4 character set, which means that it can now support Emoji characters:
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3794-now-using-utf8mb4-to-enable-emoji-in-my-comments.htm


Blog - Rakshith Naresh - No more GUI based installers for ColdFusion next? – Need your feedback
Many of you may have also heard about some of the changes that we are making to the product, such as reducing the overall size of the installer to around 200 MB. We are able to accomplish this because we are breaking the CF runtime into tiny modules that can be installed on demand whenever needed.
https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/03/no-gui-based-installers-coldfusion-next-need-feedback/


Video / Tweet - Matthew Clemente - CommandBox Videos
Another video added to my playlist covering CommandBox custom commands! In this one, I demonstrate how to incorporate user settings into your modules:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYHk7_jvDQ&feature=youtu.be
#CFML #ColdFusion
https://twitter.com/mjclemente84/status/1242892997190180864
https://twitter.com/mjclemente84


Blog - Ben Nadel - Tag Islands And CFScript-Based Tags Bring Perfection To ColdFusion In Lucee CFML 5.3.4.80
In February of this year, I wrote two back-to-back posts about fascinating features of Lucee CFML. First, that you could use all ColdFusion tags in CFScript using a consistent syntax (thanks Gert Franz); and, second, that Lucee CFML supports Tag Islands within CFScript (thanks Andrew Kretzer). In the month-and-half since those posts, I've come to believe that these two features truly round-out the ColdFusion feature set in a fundamental way, bringing an elegant perfection to the language. And, I'm freaking out that people aren't freaking out over it!
To be clear, I am not saying that Lucee CFML is flawless. Just like any other programming language, it has bugs and performance issues. But, I do feel in my core that the aforementioned features close the loop on the CFScript-based syntax in such a way that makes CFScript feel, well, perfect.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3793-tag-islands-and-cfscript-based-tags-bring-perfection-to-coldfusion-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-4-80.htm


Blog - Zac Spitzer - New Function inspectTemplates() in 5.3.6
inspectTemplates() let you flag all file compiled code the in the cache to be checked Once (Good) again, useful when you have Inspect templates set to Never (Best Performance).
https://dev.lucee.org/t/new-function-inspecttemplates-in-5-3-6/6790




CFML Jobs

Several positions available on https://www.getcfmljobs.com/
Listing over 18 ColdFusion positions from 17 companies across 15 locations in 5 Countries

3 new jobs this week.

Full-Time - ColdFusion Developer (OKC) at Oklahoma City, OK - United States
Posted Mar 27
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/ColdFusion-Developer-OKC-at-Oklahoma-City-OK/11040

Full-Time - SENIOR COLDFUSION DEVELOPER at Washington, DC - United States
Posted Mar 25
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/SENIOR-COLDFUSION-DEVELOPER-at-Washington-DC/11039

Full-Time - ColdFusion developer at Oakland, CA - United States
Posted Mar 24
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/ColdFusion-developer-at-Oakland-CA/11038

Other Jobs

Tweet from @farredeh
Immediate 6 month #ColdFusion Developer contract in Reston, VA. Must have strong #SQL stored procedures skills. Onsite (but will be remote until Covid-19 is clear). Please PM or email Farredeh at Tier4Group dot com for immediate consideration. #jobs #coldfusion #cmfl #Hiring



ForgeBox Module of the Week

CFBarcode4J by Travis Peters

Wrapper around Barbecue - a Java barcode printing library.
Can return a cfimage or write it to the browser

box install CFBarcode4J

https://www.forgebox.io/view/CFBarcode4J



VS Code Hint Tips and Tricks of the Week

VS Code Remote Development

Visual Studio Code Remote Development allows you to use a container, remote machine, or the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as a full-featured development environment.

No source code needs to be on your local machine to get these benefits. Each extension in the Remote Development extension pack can run commands and other extensions directly inside a container, in WSL, or on a remote machine so that everything feels like it does when you run locally.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote-overview




Thank you to all of our Patreon Supporters


New Patreon Supporter Shawn Oden and Ben Nadel.

These individuals are personally supporting our open source initiatives to ensure the great toolings like CommandBox, ForgeBox, ColdBox, ContentBox, TestBox and all the other boxes keep getting the continuous development they need, and funds the cloud infrastructure at our community relies on like ForgeBox for our Package Management with CommandBox.

You can support us on Patreon here https://www.patreon.com/ortussolutions

Ben Nadel
Da Li
Dan  Card
Daniel Garcia
David  Belanger
Didier  Lesnicki
Don  Bellamy
Erick Hoffman
Gary  Knight
Jan  Jannek
Jeremy Adams
Jordan Clark
Joseph  Lamoree
Katie Holmes
Laksma  Tirtohadi
Matthew Clemente
Mingo Hagen
Ryan
Scott Steinbeck
Shawn Oden
Steven Klotz
Synaptrix
Yogesh  Mathur

You can see an up to date list of all sponsors on Ortus Solutions' Website
https://ortussolutions.com/about-us/sponsors