2022-05-24 Weekly News - Episode 149

Watch the video version on YouTube at https://youtu.be/41GeENj1zho

Hosts:
 

Thanks to our Sponsor - Ortus Solutions

The makers of ColdBox, CommandBox, ForgeBox, TestBox, and all your favorite box-en out there. 
A few ways  to say thanks back to Ortus Solutions:

 
Patreon Support

Goal 1 - We have 37 patreons providing 100% of the funding for our Modernize or Die Podcasts via our Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/ortussolutions.

Goal 2 - We are 48% of the way to fully fund the hosting of ForgeBox.io


PATREON SPONSORED JOB POSTING!
Hagerty - MotorSportReg
2 Job Opportunities for Senior Software Engineer, Motorsport - more in the job section.

Watch the video on Youtube

Ready to get in the driver’s seat? Join us!
https://bit.ly/3985J3U


News and Announcements


CFSummit Website has Announced Dates for 2022

It’s finally happening! For the first time in 2 years, our 10th edition of the Adobe ColdFusion Summit will be in-person! Oct 3-4th will be when you meet coders from across the globe, learn from industry professionals, and dive into our latest release, as you explore coding like never before.
On October 5th, we’re hosting a certification program too. Join in and earn your very own Adobe badge and certificate.
https://cfsummit.adobeevents.com/


INTO THE BOX - Updates

Announcing Speakers and Sessions for Into the Box 2022 - Round 2

We are excited to announce the second set of speakers and sessions. We have a great mix of Ortus Speakers and Community speakers in this conference, and we have more community speakers coming soon, with a couple more special announcements.
Here is the next 10 speakers and their sessions.
https://www.intothebox.org/blog/announcing-speakers-for-into-the-box-2022-round-2/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast
 

Into the Box 2022 - First Workshops Announced

https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/into-the-box-2022-first-workshops-announced/


Help us decide on the other workshops - Twitter Poll concluded!

Foundeo,Inc. to Join Into the Box 2022 as a Bronze Sponsor
http://www.intothebox.org/blog/foundeoinc-to-join-into-the-box-2022-as-a-bronze-sponsor



CFML Slack Channel without using Slack

Sean Corfield tweeted about this new Slack link, and we wanted to share it.
https://cfml.linen.dev/



New Releases and Updates


CommandBox v5.5.2 Released!

We are pleased to release CommandBox 5.5.2.  This is patch release following our recent 5.5.1 release.  It contains mostly fixes for regressions in the 5.5. release.  If you're upgrading from CommandBox 5.4, please refer to the 5.5.1 release notes first.
Good number of bug fixes, improvements and tasks.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/commandbox-552-released/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast


Lucee 5.3.9.141 Released

Following up on our 5.3.9.133 stable release, the Lucee team is proud to announce our 5.3.9.141 stable release
https://dev.lucee.org/t/lucee-stable-release-5-3-9-141/10219/2


Adobe CF Builder release - update

From Mark on Slack

I know I sound like a broken record, but it is really close. I've had 2 long demos of it this week, with one more left. It looks really, really good. I'm using the latest build for all my demos, and its like... right there. There's like, one dumb bug that's probably already been fixed. Look for at least one deep dive engineering talk about VS Code during Developer Week (and I'm pushing for 2 talks because, frankly, an hour isn't enough time to cover everything this tool does). I'm trying so hard not to oversell it here, but I honestly think this is going to become the number 1 CFML IDE tool everyone uses.
https://app.slack.com/client/T06T9JEE9/C06TABBT8/thread/C06TABBT8-1653026069.319079


ICYMI - Adobe CF Engine Updates are in CommandBox now

Adobe CF engines 2018.0.14+330003 and 2021.0.04+330004 are now available on ForgeBox for your usage.  When started on CommandBox 5.5, ACF 2021 is finally free of Log4j 1.x.  ACF 2018 seems to still be using Log4j 1.x however.


ICYMI - CFWheels 2.3.0 Stable Released

This is the official v2.3.0 release. It is dropping a little over a week from Release Candidate 1. We simply wanted to make sure the new CI/CD workflow was functioning before calling the release final. We feel confident that we’re good to mark this release as final. There are no new enhancements or bug fixes in this release from 2.3.0.rc.1.
Blog: https://cfwheels.org/blog/cfwheels-2-3-0-released/



WEBINARS / MEETUPS AND WORKSHOPS

Ortus Webinar - May - Clearing the Fuzzies on Fuzzy Search with Michael Born

May 27th 2022: Time 11:00 AM Central Time ( US and Canada )
Take a walk through the world of search in this webinar which will show why your database search is not smart enough, explain the basics of how fuzzy search works, and show how to use CBElasticsearch to bring the power of fuzzy searching to your CF application.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqd-6ppz0qGtGPJxmywPST06e74ExsmshB
View all Webinars: https://www.ortussolutions.com/events/webinars



June 2022 Seattle ColdFusion User Group Meeting

We are restarting our Seattle ColdFusion User Group meetings and are looking forward to meeting online with all of you.
This month's meeting includes a presentation by Leon O'Daniel on sending SMS messages using ColdFusion and the Twilio API.
https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-ColdFusion-User-Group/events/285974950/


Adobe Workshops

Join the Adobe ColdFusion Workshop to learn how you and your agency can leverage ColdFusion to create amazing web content. This one-day training will cover all facets of Adobe ColdFusion that developers need to build applications that can run across multiple cloud providers or on-premise

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2022

10AM PT
Webinar - Exploring the CF Administrator: pt1
Mark Takata

In part one of exploring the capabilities of the ColdFusion Administrator, Mark will explore the GUI of this powerful, unique ColdFusion tool, explaining how to use many of the capabilities exposed and available for tuning.
https://exploring-coldfusion-administrator-1.meetus.adobeevents.com/


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

9:00 AM EDT
Adobe ColdFusion Workshop
Brian Sappey
https://1-day-coldfusion-workshop.meetus.adobeevents.com/


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022

9:00 AM CET
Adobe ColdFusion Workshop
Damien Bruyndonckx
https://adobe-cf-workshop.meetus.adobeevents.com/

FREE :)
Full list - https://meetus.adobeevents.com/coldfusion/



CFCasts Content Updates

https://www.cfcasts.com


Just Released

Conferences and Training


MS Build

May 24-26, 2022
Come together at Microsoft Build May 24–26 2022, to explore the latest innovations in code and application development—and to gain insights from peers and experts from around the world.
Regional Spotlights, One on One bookings available and more.
https://mybuild.microsoft.com/en-US/home


Ioniconf  (Free Online Ionic conference)

May 25, 2022
Join us for a full day of talks from experts and leaders in the web community, showing how the web is pushing the boundaries of mobile app development. Get insights on the latest web libraries, frameworks, and tools that are empowering web developers to build stunning mobile and cross-platform apps using the power of the web.
https://ionic.io/ioniconf


US VueJS Conf

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL • JUNE 8-10, 2022
Beach. Code. Vue.
Workshop day: June 8
Main Conference: June 9-10
https://us.vuejs.org/
Speakers and Schedule Announced https://us.vuejs.org/schedule/


Quasar Conf

Please let us know about you and what you'd like to speak about in all things Quasar or Vue!!!
Conference Date: Saturday, July 9th, 2022 - 3 p.m. GMT
Deadline for Proposals: June 9th, 2022
Call for Proposals - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSecQfTFUM1BINAvpPl-Khbk7UYpLk2srIR0pLgMcVjpJwWMCA/viewform


THAT Conference

Howdy. We’re a full-stack, tech-obsessed community of fun, code-loving humans who share and learn together.
We geek-out in Texas and Wisconsin once a year but we host digital events all the time.

WISCONSIN DELLS, WI / JULY 25TH - 28TH, 2022
A four-day summer camp for developers passionate about learning all things mobile, web, cloud, and technology.
https://that.us/events/wi/2022/

Our very own Daniel Garcia is speaking there
https://that.us/activities/sb6dRP8ZNIBIKngxswIt


Adobe Developer Week 2022

July 18-22, 2022
Online - Virtual - Free
The Adobe ColdFusion Developer Week is back - bigger and better than ever! This year, our experts are gearing up to host a series of webinars on all things ColdFusion. This is your chance to learn with them, get your questions answered, and build cloud-native applications with ease.
Note: Speakers listed are 2021 speakers currently - check back for updates - I heard speakers were being contacted, and info coming very soon!!! Wink wink nudge nudge
https://adobe-coldfusion-devweek-2022.attendease.com/registration/form


CF Summit - Official

Mirage
Oct 3rd & 4th - CFSummit Conference
Oct 5th - Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe ColdFusion Certification Classes & Tests
https://cfsummit.adobeevents.com/

From Mark Takata on Slack re Adobe Certified Professional
The Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe ColdFusion cert is a totally different, MUCH more difficult and comprehensive certification than the CF Specialist previously offered.
Myself, Nolan and Dave F + the CF engineering team, Elishia and Kishore all spent a week together building the new one and it is HARD.
I highly recommend it as a test of your skills, I guarantee everyone will learn something new.

... Yes, but there's also over 100 hours of video to go over before the 1 day lecture + cert. So you watch videos, sit in class, then take the exam there. It is no joke, definitely challenging, but super satisfying to pass.
Plus you get access to those videos for a year, which is nice for going back and reviewing things down the line.

- So this is not the same certification as the specialist, the professional seems like a big step up.


VueJS Forge
 
June 29-30th
Organized by Vue School
_The largest hands-on Vue.js Event
Team up with 1000s of fellow Vue.js devs from around the globe to build a real-world application in just 2 days in this FREE hackathon-style event.
Make connections. Build together. Learn together.
Sign up as an Individual or signup as a company
Company Deal - $2000 for a team of 5, includes VueSchool annual membership and guaranteed seat at the workshops at VueJS Forge as well… and you can pick your team
https://vuejsforge.com/


Into The Box 2022

September 6, 7 and 8, 2022
One day workshops before the two day conference!
Early bird pricing available until May 31st, 2022

Conference Website:
https://intothebox.org

ITB Blog has new updates almost every day!


Into the Box Latam 2022

Dec 7th
More information coming very soon.


CFCamp

No CFCAMP 2022, we're trying again for summer 2023
TLDR is that it's just too hard and there's too much uncertainty right now.


More conferences

Need more conferences, this site has a huge list of conferences for almost any language/community.
https://confs.tech/


Blogs, Tweets, and Videos of the Week

5/23/22 Blog - James Moberg - Parsing Width/Height from SVG File using ColdFusion
Someone on the Lucee website asked how to get width/height of SVG image file in Lucee. I tend use a lot of SVG images when generating PDFs using WKHTMLTOPDF with ColdFusion 2016-2021 and Lucee. I thought I'd try writing a cross-compatible UDF to parse this information. I've added support for desc, title and id metadata. The dimensions will be pulled from svg.viewBox (if exists) rather than width and height tags as I noticed that these dimensions seemed to be used more often with some generators. (NOTE: While the "S" in SVG means that images "scaleable", the dimensions are still extremely beneficial when embedding so you can explicitly code the dimensions using the correct aspect ratio.)
https://dev.to/gamesover/parsing-widthheight-from-svg-file-using-coldfusion-ljo


5/21/22 - Tweet - James Moberg - isValid doesnt support IPv4 but 20 year old UDF does
I'm validating an IPv4 value & just realized that #ColdFusion isValid() doesn't support it. (I know type="regex" can be passed, but I'm just surprised that it's 2022 and it's not already built-in.)
NOTE: This #cfml UDF from ~20 years ago supports IPv4.
https://cflib.org/udf/CheckPattern
https://twitter.com/gamesover/status/1527782375580647430
https://twitter.com/gamesover


5/20/22 - Podcast - CFAlive - Are your Database Relationships in a Rut? with Dave Ferguson
Dave Ferguson talks about "Are your Database Relationships in a Rut?" in this episode of the CF Alive Podcast, with host Michaela Light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgklYsTkuk0


5/18/22 - Blog - Gavin Pickin - Why should I use 3rd party libraries vs Roll my own?
There is always a trade-off between using a 3rd party library and rolling your version in software development. I often hear many of these points in discussions, but I wonder how many people know and consider them, so I wanted to share my pros and cons.
TLDR
This article will help convince you that libraries are not EVIL like so many haters believe. Choosing the right libraries make you more productive and efficient, not lazy. This article identifies solid use-cases for using a 3rd party library in your application. It gives you a checklist of questions to help you identify the red flags of unsafe, unreliable, poorly supported, or ill-suited libraries.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/software-craftsmanship-why-should-i-use-3rd-party-libraries-vs-roll-my-own/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast


5/14/22 - Podcast - Wicked Good Development - Developer and Open Source Contributor Stories at Dev Nexus - Part 3 - Luis Majano
his episode is three fold as we finish up the roundtable discussion on Devnexus 2022 and we get a chance to interview two more developers who contribute to the open source community. We connect with Luis Majano, CEO of Ortus Solutions and long-time computer engineer, about putting in the open source work. From using a 70/30 ratio to dedicate time building open source in between client work to getting the next generation involved in maintaining minor code fixes first-hand, hear how the level of work put in makes the difference in professional open source.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5WivNKfSCekMycmig4WiVk?si=tidx5sOwQT67g4L0-99OtQ


Ben Nadel Corner

5/18/22 - Blog - Ben Nadel - Code Kata: Getting Initials For A Name In Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201
At work, we have many user interfaces (UI) that use initials instead of full names, such as the "face pile" widget. The current technique for extracting initials from names is rather simplistic: we grab the set of tokens defined by the RegEx pattern, \S+, and then pluck out the leading character of each match. As a code kata, I wanted to see if I could author a slightly more clever user defined function (UDF) that could take a name and return initials in Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/4265-code-kata-getting-initials-for-a-name-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-8-201.htm


5/19/22 - Blog - Ben Nadel - SQL "Join Tables" Are Just "Entity Tables" With Hard-To-Name Concepts
Over the past few months, I've been incrementally modernizing the public-facing portion of this ColdFusion blog. And, all in all, it's been going quite smoothly! But, when I started to work on modernizing the administrative portion of the blog, things got a little hairy. Not only is the administrative code even older and jankier than the public code, it requires CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on "join tables" in the MySQL database. And, up until now, I haven't had to think about modeling these join tables in a data access layer (DAL)
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/4267-sql-join-tables-are-just-entity-tables-with-hard-to-name-concepts.htm


5/20/22 - Blog - Ben Nadel - Parsing Nullish Date "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" In Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201
At work, one of the APIs that I consume returns data for a Date column that didn't always exist. And, instead of returning a null or an empty string for rows in which the value in the database is NULL, they return what I assume is a null-coalesced date: 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z. I didn't realize that this was happening until I started to see dates in my system showing up as 2001 - which is many years before the API in question even existed. It turns out, passing a date/time mask into the parseDateTime() function is kind of important in Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/4268-parsing-nullish-date-0001-01-01t00-00-00z-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-8-201.htm


5/21/22 - Blog - Ben Nadel - Dynamically Enabling / Disabling Session Management In Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201
Currently, my blog is composed of two completely separate ColdFusion applications: one for the public facing functionality (you) and one for the content publisher (me). The public facing ColdFusion application has no session management. But the internal facing ColdFusion application has sessions and login-based authentication. As I've been refactoring this platform, I briefly considered combining the two ColdFusion applications and just dynamically enabling sessions for my user. I dismissed this approach as unnecessarily complicated; but, the fact that it's even possible is a fascinating aspect of ColdFusion. As such, I thought that I might quickly demonstrate that you can dynamically enable and disable session management in Lucee CFML 5.3.8.201
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/4269-dynamically-enabling-disabling-session-management-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-8-201.htm


Adam Cameron Corner

5/17/22 - Blog - Adam Cameron - Why I'm doing this TinyTestFramework exercise
I have listened to both Modernize or Die® and Working Code Podcast (the specific episode of the latter is not public yet: I get it early as I'm a patreon… which you should be too: Patreon: Working Code is creating podcasts) this evening, and I appreciate them both mentioning my series on TinyTestFramework, but they both kinda got my motivations for doing it wrong.
I'm not doing it for these reasons. I mean… I am doing it, yes, obviously. But these are not my motivations:
To work out how to write a testing framework. This is not really that interesting to me. How to do it within a single expression (the whole thing is one struct literal)? Yes, interested in that. Def.
Because I think TestBox is doing anything wrong. It could not be further from the truth: I think TestBox is one of the best CFML projects out there. I am using it as inspiration, as I want code written in TinyTestFramework to be lift-and-shift-able into TestBox.
https://blog.adamcameron.me/2022/05/why-im-doing-this-tinytestframework.html


5/18/22 - Blog - Adam Cameron - CFML: Filler article with code but no TDD at all
I'm still working on the TinyTestFramework though: some things don't change.
My test file for this work, which is the framework and all its tests in one is getting a bit weighty: >1200 LOC, and I'm finding it difficult to navigate about the place. Especially as I'm using trycf.com as my dev environment :-).
Using the technique I recently documented to execute code on trycf.com remotely ("Running CFML code on trycf.com via a remote HTTP request"), I've split-out the framework and the tests into different gists, and wrote a wee calling-harness to run them all… and for completeness on both ColdFusion 2021 and Lucee 5.
https://blog.adamcameron.me/2022/05/cfml-filler-article-with-code-but-no.html



CFML Jobs

Several positions available on https://www.getcfmljobs.com/
Listing over 89 ColdFusion positions from 50 companies across 45 locations in 5 Countries.

4 new jobs listed

Full-Time - Senior Software Engineer - Coldfusion/C# at Plano, TX - United States
Posted May 24
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/Senior-Software-engineer-coldfusion/11475

Full-Time - Software Engineer-ColdFusion at Reno, NV - United States
Posted May 18
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/Software-EngineerColdFusion-at-Reno-NV/11471

Full-Time - Software Engineer-ColdFusion at Bloomington, MN - United States
Posted May 18
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/Software-EngineerColdFusion-at-Bloomington-MN/11472

Full-Time - Software Engineer-ColdFusion at Roseville, CA - United States
Posted May 18
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/Software-EngineerColdFusion-at-Roseville-CA/11476


PATREON SPONSORED JOB POSTING!

Hagerty - MotorSportReg

Senior Software Engineer, Motorsport
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to work primarily with Node/Vue.js, ColdFusion, and AWS to improve our platform and build greenfield experiences.

We are a 25-person team supporting 1,600 organizations with our SaaS CRM, commerce and event management platform. With 8,000 events managed in our marketplace annually by our customers, our goal is to be the number one software platform for automotive and motorsport events.

Ready to get in the driver’s seat? Join us!
https://bit.ly/3985J3U 


Other Job Links

ForgeBox Module of the Week

Send Grid Protocol

A cbmailservices protocol for sending email via Send Grid. cbmailservices already supports CFMail, File, InMemory, Null, and PostMark. This module adds SendGrid support as well as the ability to optionally use SendGrid templates.

https://www.forgebox.io/view/send-grid-protocol


VS Code Hint Tips and Tricks of the Week

Active File In StatusBar

Visual Studio Code extension for showing the full path of the currently active file in the status bar. You can also click on it to copy to your clipboard. Its handy when you need to quickly see the full filepath.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=RoscoP.ActiveFileInStatusBar



Thank you to all of our Patreon Supporters

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

https://community.ortussolutions.com/

Patreons

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