Hello World,
Well folks it’s Day Two at CFUnited ‘07. I am expecting todays sessions to be just as informative and fun as yesterday’s … with the exception of the last session on Wednesday. Speaking strictly for myself I found no useful application for the information being presented in the Salesforce.com session. So I decided to get some work done.
After the sessions ended I decided to make on final pass through the exhibit hall to visit booths and talk with friends. I couldn’t stick around for the Networking Event (and open bar). I needed to get home before my family forgets what I look like.
So … the first session today is about a topic that I have struggled with learning for years. It’s not that it too difficult to learn. I simply don’t have the time required to really focus on learning it well. The session is …
Hands-on Regular Expressions
with Michael Dinowitz
- I have always felt that Michael is an excellent teacher. He began his session (about 10 minutes early) explaining how uncomplicated regular expressions can be. He even presented us with a problem - spam-bots on forms - identified the pieces of the puzzle, and then provided us with a high-level solution - and this is all while he was setting up his laptop.
- Book recommendation: Sam’s Teach Yourself Regular Expressions (forgive me if I get the title wrong).
- New in ColdFusion 8: REMatch will return an array containing the text of all the matches.
- Using pre-built sets also known as Posix Classes can make your job of building regular expressions easier. They also benefit from being self documenting.
- I like the fact that Michael used his web site as a presentation tool instead of PowerPoint slides. With the release of CF8 and its dynamic presentation capabilities, I think more and more presenters will move to using web-based presentation tools. I know I will for my next user group presentation.
- The last thing I would like to say about this session is that I wish he had more time to show some more complex examples.
I left the session a bit early because I expected the next session to be a full house. Ciao!
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