CFUnited 07 – Using MVC with Flex and ColdFusion

Hello World,

This is one of those sessions that may not be as fun as some of the others but is necessary for me to wrap my head around using MVC and Cairngorm in Flex. My Flex projects are getting larger and more complex. So here I am attending …

Using MVC with Flex and ColdFusion

with Thomas Burleson

Information about this presentation will be available on the UniversalMinds blog (http://blog.universalmind.com/)

• Simliarities between the MVC inColdFusion and Flex 2.
• Took a look at the MVC pattern in Mach-ii.
• Took a look at the MVC framework in Cairngorm.
• Model – contains your business data.
• View – display data and provides user interaction.
• Controller – listens for, processes, and dispatches events.
• How is this done in Mach-ii?
  • Model – contains the business data and manages the relationships between your data objects.
  • View – *cfm pages access data from the request scope and announces event using GET/POST.
  • Controller – Contains your registered event listeners and controls your views.
• Explored the differences between an MVC pattern in ColdFusion and in Flex.

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CFUnited 07 – Advanced Styling and Skinning in Flex 2

Hello World,

Now this is the really fun session, full of bells and whistles. Welcome to …

Advanced Styling and Skinning in Flex 2
with Rob Rusher

• This was the first session I’ve attended that gave away products – swag rules!
• Flex 3 has several ways to apply styles, including inline, local, external, AS3, and Themes.
• It was unfortunate that the slides were very blurry. This was not the fault of the presenter but the projector being used in that ballroom.
• Adobe is planning to have one or more of the Flex Explorers built into Flex Builder 3.
• You can skinany of the Flex components using graphics (jpg, gif, swf, etc) or using Actionscript 3.
• This presentation will be available at http://www.effectiveui.com and click on Presentations.
• You can embed fonts by specifying the unicodeRange of using FlashType
• A few more examples later and the presentation was over. He gave away three boxer shorts and a training class at their office in Colorado (ski country).

On to my last session for the day

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CFUnited 07 – Hands-on Regular Expressions

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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