Harry Klein

Unit testing is receiving a lot of attention these days. Since Macromedia introduced CFCs (ColdFusion Components), developers have been intrigued by the new object-oriented possibilities ColdFusion offers. But OOP also has weaknesses - debugging applications got harder. Many open source frameworks have already been borrowed from the "mother language," Java. If you examine the coldfusionmx/lib folder you will discover Java libraries like Crimson, jintegra, log4j, Xalan, and others. cfcUnit is a unit testing framework that is derived from the JUnit framework available for Java. cfcUnit is a part of the OpenXCF project on SourceForge.net. This means that it is available as a true open source project under the Apache license. You can check it out at http://openxcf.sourceforge.net. The author, Paul Kenney, did a great job in porting this application to ColdFusion. What ... (more)

Advanced Deployment with Ant (and DbUnit)

Apache Ant is a subproject being developed as part of the Jakarta project. Ant is a Java-based build tool which uses XML build files. Its main competitors are GNU Make, Jam, and NAnt. Many developers prefer Ant because it is environment-neutral, tightly integrated into Java, and faster than Make. XML build files are easier to create, read, and maintain than build files used with the Make utility (or other similar utilities). The last CFDJ Ant article by John Ashenfelter (CFDJ, Vol. 6, issue 2) covered some basic Ant tasks that you would likely perform during the development proc... (more)

Version Control Using Subversion

I've been meaning to switch from CVS to Subversion for quite a while. It seemed hard, but it actually took me only a couple of days to get it installed and configured for the whole development team. This article describes the differences between CVS and Subversion and explains how to install Subversion and migrate an existing CVS repository. It also describes how to configure Subversion in a Windows environment, explains a basic Subversion project structure, and introduces the main Subversion clients. Finally, it shows ways to use Subversion with Ant and how to get connected to ... (more)

Content Management with ColdFusion

As the Web develops, the need for easy and efficient Web site and portal management increases. Developing an easy-to-use future-proof content management system (CMS) from scratch isn't easy. The basic functionalities can be assembled in a reasonable timeframe, meaning that you will be able to edit the structure and the content of the Web site. An enterprise CMS with complex features like scheduled content publishing, content replication, cluster support, sophisticated workflows, roles, and other advanced features can take several years. In this article I'll explain the purpose ... (more)