November 24, 2017
Resources for learning more about CF2016
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(8)
November 24, 2017
Resources for learning more about CF2016
ColdFusion troubleshooter
Wizard 146 posts
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(8)

Think you have a good handle on the many things that were new in ColdFusion 2016, or do you think there were only a couple of new features? In this post, I point you to a couple dozen resources which highlight both its major and minor features, as well as its updates since the initial release, and still more resources on the new release.

Though CF2016 has been out since Feb 2016, there are many folks who may have only recently have moved to this latest CF version. And some may have made the move some time ago but focused only on deploying their app on the new version, without considering its many new features.

My primary focus here is resources provided by Adobe, but I do end with a pointer to a meta resource featuring still more CF2016 resources from folks in the community.

First up are some videos: there was a brief 8-minute video released when it came out, and the hour-long keynote on at the Adobe CF Summit several months later also talked about CF2016:

Next, there were a few Adobe articles (on the Adobe site) which addressed new features when CF 2016 came out:

Then there were various sections in the CF documentation that highlighted some of its major new features:

There was also a set of CF2016 release notes that covered other aspects of the new release, as well as a doc page on deprecated features:

Since the initial release in Feb 2016, there have been several updates, and there is both a page which lists the CF2016 updates and one that highlights the key changes in each update:

And some may be interested to review the CF2016 End User Licensing Agreement, the CF2016 LockDown Guide, the CF2016 Migration Guide, and the CF2016 Performance Guide:

Of course, there also is the rest of the (thousands of pages of) CF documentation which covers everything about ColdFusion 2016. If you were not aware, there’s a lot more to the docs than just the CFML Reference, as I wrote about in another recent post here.

The CF team has also made various posts covering aspects of CF2016 on the CF team blog, blogs.coldfusion.com. There have been hundreds of posts in the past couple of years, and I’ll note that I did a blog post where I highlighted what I felt were The 100 most interesting posts on the Adobe ColdFusion blog, the past 3 years, which I wrote in early 2017. Among these were some on CF2016 features, specifically. (I also hope to do another post highlighting the top posts of 2017.)

And though technically the API Manager feature is not part of ColdFusion, per se, it was released along with CF2016 and highlighted by Adobe as essentially a feature of it, for those with an Enterprise license of CF2016:

Finally, of course other folks besides Adobe have covered CF2016 new features and changes. As tempting as it may be for me to try to gather up a list of them, fortunately I don’t need to as we have another dedicated community member, Akbarsait Noormohamed, who has already done it. Just as he has for each recent release, he pulled together a long list of community-contributed resources, mostly from around the timeframe of the introduction of CF 2016:

If anyone would want to mention any other Adobe resources that would interest folks getting started with CF2016, please share them as comments here, and while I’m not averse to non-Adobe resources being mentioned as comments here, I hope you will be sure to mention them to Akbarsait on his page, to add to his list).

8 Comments
2017-12-06 14:52:23
2017-12-06 14:52:23
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RAHUL UPADHYAY
's comment
2017-12-09 15:38:54
2017-12-09 15:38:54
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RAHUL UPADHYAY
's comment

Rahul, I didn’t mention it because really it’s not about CF2016, specifically. It’s simply the “Fast Track to CF” course, presented online. My review of it showed there to be very little that was about things new in CF2016.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad they posted it. But I just would not want to suggest it for someone interested in “what’s new in CF2016”, which is why I didn’t mention it.

Thanks for bringing it up, though, so i could offer that clarification. Perhaps I should have said it in the post, but now my perspective on it is clear. 🙂

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2017-11-29 18:49:10
2017-11-29 18:49:10

I’d have to agree with Shawn on the book angle. It would be nice to see a physical book out there on the shelves along side other languages.

There’s tons of great content out there, like Charlie’s, that could fill one.

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Grae Desmond
's comment
2017-12-09 15:31:11
2017-12-09 15:31:11
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Grae Desmond
's comment

Yep, Grae. I have wondered about creating a book out of the content I’ve written, in blogs, presos, and articles. It’s a lot of work, because I’d invariably edit (and nearly rewrite) a lot of what I wrote, first to update it where needed, but second to make it fit in the context of the book. So again that’s a lot of work.

Also the focus of such a book I’d do would be on the sort of work I do: troubleshooting, installation, configuration, administration, migration, updating, tuning, security (the last of which of course be its own book, better done by others who focus on all aspects of that).

So when you consider the effort involved, and the potential audience (those who use CF, minus those who would learn of such a book, minus those interested in one on such topics), that is why I have not done one.

Many authors admit that their only motivation to do a book is as a means to garner consulting (because the income is usually negligible, and the effort usually substantial, such that it becomes barely done for a minimum wage.

For me, I get all the consulting work I need as it is, so don’t need to do this to add to it. So instead, I do what I can to share knowledge by way of the very blog posts, presos, and articles that first mentioned here.

That takes only incremental time, rather than a concentrated effort. So for now I’ll just keep doing that, and we’ll see if it leads to more, or if someone else may take up the effort to create a book for those who want it.

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2017-11-28 14:42:05
2017-11-28 14:42:05

Still think CF is missing out by not having an e-book available on Kindle and other e-book providers. All these resources provided are online material. Offline reading is very important. Matter of fact I got started in many web technologies reading books and offline e-books, ColdFusion being one of them.

Don’t give me the “this is on the community” deal. Its been over 5 years since the last book and nobody in the community has filled the void.

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Anonymous
's comment
2017-12-01 05:29:21
2017-12-01 05:29:21
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Anonymous
's comment

So Shawn, you’re saying that Adobe ought to create some document or offer one or more of the online CF docs as an e-book, to be sold at sites like Amazon?

I will say I’d hope first simply for PDFs of all the manuals, something I’ve been clamoring for since CF2016 came out, as the PDFs offered were just a subset of the docs, with a few paragraphs per section and then a pointer to the online docs. The CF11 version of the docs were the last when we had complete PDFs of every manual.

If they did that, then they could offer the 2,000-page “Developing ColdFusion Applications” manual, which is basically a user guide for CF. Of course, would people buy that if offered as a Kindle book? Probably not, but Adobe could put a small price on it, like $10, which could defray the cost of creating them.

As for them or anyone creating another book, well, I’m not sure we can expect them to do it, nor someone from the community, as you say. It’s a lot of work to write a book, and with these 6,000 pages of existing CF online docs (as I discuss above) its just hard to justify that effort.

I know some people (including myself) have considered specialized books, but it really is a LOT of work for rather little reward. I speak from experience, having contributed to nearly every CF book the past 15 years.

But sure, let’s encourage Adobe to create Kindle or other e-book versions of the docs, and perhaps even offer them at Amazon, etc…once they create PDFs of them first, I would say. 🙂

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Charlie Arehart
's comment
2017-12-01 14:56:47
2017-12-01 14:56:47
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Charlie Arehart
's comment

I would absolutely pay for the book myself and the full set for all our developers. In the past its how I have convert other developers to CF when I could not find a good hire. Offline matters. Myself,I have an Ipad as my ebook reading device. Being able to read up on a plane or really anywhere disconnected has been a great benefit, people want to be able to get out of the computer chair.

Now for the feasibility. I did talk with Ben awhile back and it was clear the CF9 and CF10 books didnt hit their sales goals. I think this was because of cost and content. I recall the books were running something to the tune of $200 for the set of 4. To me I didn’t mind, its cheaper than classes or wasting time, but I understand not everyone views it that way. Second the content was getting stale … libaries outdated, not many new features. Fast forward to the next release so much has changed since CF9 that I think there would be a demand for a complete series to get up to date. Many features have never been covered in previous books, and many features have drastically changed or should change. Content also needs to be distributed and major ebook suppliers provide a strong way to do that.

Finally it gives the Adobe team perspective. Some features when they are built don’t quite live up to the expected usability. Even happens with some of my customers, and features will have big changes to make it easier before a customer even has eyes on it because the inital was too hard to use. So for example, CFExchange tag, as the team was writing content for the book it would or should realize that, the largest provider is now GSuite, and there is no baked in solution for handling that. They would realize this is causing ColdFusion to show its age, nor is it making it easy for the customer, thus it needs to be fixed. When your forced to use and write about something and attach your name to it, it would become glaringly obvious its not up to par. Not having an official book has allowed the team to build and then forget about features, where as if you are building a WACK, you have to cover email and calendars, and deal with the problem.

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ShawnFLM
's comment
2017-12-09 15:08:10
2017-12-09 15:08:10
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ShawnFLM
's comment

Shawn, I do agree there could be value in Adobe offering the online docs in print format. As I said above, though, I’d want to see just PDFs first. 🙂 Then e-books (free or commercial) second.

Actually, Adobe used to offer the docs in print, as a set, until about CF8, IIRC. I suspect that the cost of printing them wasn’t justified given the sales. Heck, few know there is a complete doc set, online, and fewer knew about the print version.

But on your next points, about 3rd party books, I’ll just clarify that CF9 was the last release where we did a multi-volume set for the CFWACK. For 10, we did actually do just one book that focused solely on what was new for 10.

Would it be helpful for someone to do another CF book, laying out how to use it based on all that’s new since the original ones? Sure. Again, I suspect it will be hard for anyone to justify the effort.

And it seems you’re proposing that Adobe do it, so that “it would become glaringly obvious [that aspects of CF are] not up to par”. Again, I find it hard to believe they will put the time and effort into that.

But let’s repeat that there is the existing 2000+ page “user guide” in the CF docs called “Developing ColdFusion Applications”. There they DO explain how CF and its features work, and address “features [that] have never been covered in previous [3rd party] books”.

So please don’t hear me arguing with you, shawn. You’re trying to make a point, and there’s value to it. I’m just offering counterpoints to make the discussion clear to anyone else reading it, whether Adobe or 3rd parties (if they contemplate writing a new book) or readers (if they too long for a new book).

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