Wow! Where has all the time gone? This morning I'm looking back on 2009, and it has flown by. We've watched our banks collapse, and our government bail them out. We've watched the housing market go to pot, and friends and family have lost their homes. We've seen congress attempt to pump life into a social health care program, and watched it divide a nation. We've seen the auto industry grind to a halt, and seen iconic brands completely shut their doors. It's been a depressing year.

I think many of us have had a hard time keeping a positive attitude this past year. I know that the early part of the second half of this year I saw my own morale hit lows, the uncertainty making me moody and impatient. I was waiting for something (anything) positive to happen. You can see it on this blog as well, when you see that the last post made was in October, and I never even touted the release of ColdFusion 9 (which is well worth blogging about). But, things have changed.

A few months back, I had a personal epiphany. I reminded myself that change is only affected through action. My inaction was pulling me down, not really adversely affecting my work or family (yet), but not doing anything to improve my conditions either. So, I woke up. I decided that I would be my own positive force for change. I apologized to those I worked with, and vowed to find my inner motivation, to move forward with purpose, and challenged them all to do the same.

In that time, my shift in thought, word, and action has brought about personal change and growth. I have consciously worked to change my own personal perspective of each situation, to take on each new challenge as an opportunity, and to give more of myself to others with a servant's heart. I have, once again, realized that happiness begins with a decision; knowing that the only person's thoughts and actions that I can control are my own. I can influence others, through my words and actions, but I can not control them. If I maintain a path of right thinking and right feeling and right doing, then that influence can be a positive influence, and I will be happier for doing what is right.

So, where have I been? Well, I took the time to read some fiction. I generally read one fiction title a year, but this time I read fourteen (in a row). I also took in some self-help and leadership titles that I've been putting on hold for a while. I did some work on my open source CFQueryReader project, put in a topic for cf.Objective() 2010, and committed to updating Learning Ext JS for a 2^nd Edition around the changes in the ExtJs 3.x releases (with more ColdFusion examples).

At work, we've undertaken a key rewrite of our most important front-end application, which has been exciting, challenging, and rewarding. We have several high priority projects that we are completing prior to a major conference in February. Currently, we're hiring for several positions, with a very active interview process. And, most recently, my boss decided to pursue other interests, and I have taken on the interim Development Manager position. This alone has been a major transition, with many extreme shifts in my basic duties and responsibilities, but has been very exciting and rewarding as well. It helps to have such an outstanding team, within Development, as well as so many great people who work with us day to day.

Last night, my wife and daughter having fallen asleep already, I was standing on our back deck at the stroke of Midnight. All around the neighborhood I could hear cheers and singing, while fireworks were going off left and right. I stood there, staring up in the darkness, and said a prayer The Father. I prayed for the strength and wisdom to approach the coming challenges of this new year. I prayed for the vision to see each new opportunity, and the will and courage to act when necessary (and the understanding on when not too). I prayed for patience and guidance, in discovering what new paths I am meant to walk upon. I prayed for the health and well being of my family and friends, that they might continually have love, life, and prosperity. And I prayed that everyone would endeavor to improve their own understanding, of themselves and their fellow man, so that we might all create a better world in 2010. If everyone endeavors to become better, and do what they can to make life better for those around them, then we can make this world a better place.

Happy New Year everyone! May 2010 be your year of greatness!

On the last day of CFUnited 2005, a group of us were out on the patio having a final drink together. I got into a conversation with Clark Valberg about linguistics. I was a translator in latter half of my time in the military, and Clark was asking if I thought my experience with learning another language had helped me in learning to be a better developer?

I absolutely agreed. I have an aptitude for languages, and always have. It's something I've picked up, and I can generally get to a point where I can effectively communicate (at least on the simplest of terms) within a very short time. Programming isn't much different, if you think about it. When I first got into computing again, after leaving the Army, I was teaching myself ten different programming languages at the same time. I had a lot of catching up to do, being out of the game for so long, so I picked up some books, found online resources, and took to the task of getting up to speed.

Maybe that's why there are so many talented developers outside the US. In the US, we aren't required to learn another language out of necessity, whereas in most other countries of the world (not all, but most) it is very commonplace for people to speak two or more languages.

You can kind of apply this in the reverse, to some degree, as well. Those who only learn one development platform may be limiting themselves. Knowing one programming language inside and out can be a good thing, but learning others can also open a developer to new ways of approaching a challenge. I've known many developers who knew a server-side language (ColdFusion, ASP, PHP, whatever), but never bothered to learn JavaScript, or how to write well formed XHTML. To me, that's limiting. Even crippling.

What are your thoughts?

Several months ago gas in Nashville cost almost $3 a gallon. One enterprising station owner decided to charge around $2.60 a gallon, while all of his competition was at the $2.97 range. While he did this, people were lined up to get in the station. People were pouring through his little convenience mart, to go to the bathroom, or maybe pick up on his 2 for $2 Coca Cola deals. His competitor's stations (there are 4 more within a two block radius) were nearly empty.

This station owner was a very smart man. Did he lose money? His profit margin may have been smaller, but the traffic and sales increase probably doubled his typical profit intake. He had to bring in tankers three times a day to refill his tanks, and some delivery truck was almost always there restocking something in his convenience store.

There is a lesson to be learned here by America's retailers. If you've never worked in retail management, you don't know what kind of mark-ups most retailers have on the goods you and I purchase every day. Sometimes those mark-ups are anywhere from 70 - 100% of the actual cost of goods. Bars and Restaurants even more so, where the mark-up could be as much as 600% on some items. Now, to be fair, these businesses have a lot of overhead they have to pay: salaries, utilities, licenses, security, insurance, etc. But, notice they're having trouble doing some of these things right now? No one is buying.

This is called "market correction". See, we (the American public) have allowed these companies to more or less rape us for years. Why is it that an automobile that cost $3,000 is 1977 will cost $18,000 today? Why does a gallon of milk cost almost $3.50? Why is it that a gallon of gas that sold for $1.15 in 1999...? Well, because we let them charge us that much. And right now, we're done. Not only won't we pay those rates, we can't.

The government is so heavily involved in trying to 'bailout' America (Have you read the stimulus plan?), that big business is still losing the Big Picture. You want your people to stay employed? You want to get back towards the black? You want to keep getting fat bonuses, and have the funding to continue driving innovation and expansion? OK, then charge a reasonable rate for product. What is really more important, a fat profit margin, or staying in business?

I know, there are dozens of other factors involved here. Employers think they pay too much for help. Employees don't think they get paid enough. Unions want every benefit the rest of the American public can't afford. Fuel and utility costs are rising, increasing the expenditures and affecting the bottom line. When does the cycle stop? When do we, the American public, wake up and say enough is enough? When do American businesses say "We can do better by the American people, and survive, and be profitable." and start working with the boundaries of sanity. $250 for a Wii and $40 a game? It's a f@%#ing game. $200 for an iPhone? It's a damn phone. $80 for a pair of Nike? They're shoes for God's sake, they're gonna wear out in six months if you use 'em right.

When did we become so screwed up that we would continually let ourselves be taken advantage of? When does common sense sink in and we all say "No"? (When does "Common Sense" become common again?) There is a difference between being profitable, and being Greedy.

It takes people, average Americans like you and I, to stand up and be heard. It takes forcing retailers and businesses to "get it straight." What do you want to say? What do you want to do? How do you want to live? These aren't just retorical questions, I'm looking for your feedback. Stand up and be heard.

To all of my friends, family, and colleagues who voted for our new President Elect, Congratulations. It is my sincerest hope, wish, and prayer, that in the coming four years I never have to say "I told you so."

Today I received the following comment here, on an older post on Variables and Naming Conventions:

...I wish Adobe would publish and adopt some kind of official naming convention. Sometimes reading sample code written in some other convention can make things harder to follow...

It was almost funny that this comment had come in when it had. Recently I was doing a lot of research for a User Group presentation I just did on the new ColdFusion 8 Ajax Components (have to re-record it before public release). In the process, I spent a great deal of time going over documentation all over the internet, from LiveDocs to countless blogs, absorbing the wealth of information that is already out there. It was outstanding that there were so many resources out there for people to learn from. On the other hand, it was a little sad that so much of the sample code was written in ways that can really start new developers off with some bad habits.

I'm not perfect, by any means, but I try to pay careful attention to the code that I place on this blog for readers to use and learn from. One thing that I attempt to do is pay attention to basic Web Standards, like using XHTML (the current standard) instead of HTML, keeping styles in the stylesheet, and having unobtrusive JavaScript. I don't always do it, sometimes it doesn't make sense for a quick example, but I try, especially within code downloads. I also try to adhere to my own Coding Guidelines, so that code appears to be consistent and easy to read and understand.

Probably the one that bothers me the most, and that I see most prevalent in blogs, documentation, and books, is the lack of proper variable scoping. I know that, often, we're just publishing quick examples, but this can be an extremely detrimental practice. I have worked on some very large enterprise applications, with years of code written by half-a-dozen different developers, most of whom learned their ColdFusion (and development) skills through the docs or a book. Many had actually come up with some very creative and effective algorithms to fix some issue, or create some new whiz bang feature, but their code was so poorly scoped that, after time, it could take down the server. Why? How? Enterprise sites may contain several hundred (or thousand) templates, containing dozens of variables on each page, and can potentially be hit by hundreds (or thousands) of users simultaneously. Multiply the number of variables by the number of pages by the number of users, then imagine ColdFusion doing a ScopeCheck on each one, to figure out which scope each variable requested belongs in. Even if the variable is in the VARIABLES scope, it's still that many times ScopeCheck will be called while rendering a page.

Still not convinced? Go download varScoper, and run it on your project root folder, including your subfolders, and see what it comes up with. Yeah, I'm still in shock. Cleanup on that is easier on a small subproject scale, but it's definitely forced me to think better when I'm writing my code, paying attention as I go, to minimize the performance impact of my applications, no matter how small it may be. I learned my bad habits from the docs, various books, sample code slung around on the CF-Talk list. I've continued to realize that there are better ways of doing things (like OOP and frameworks), and adjust my style and methods, and I think it's important to consider these 'best practices' when contributing. A little more code, but the right thing to do in the end, for you, your app, and your systems.

So, if you own a site of documentation, revise it. If you're writing a book, edit it. If you publish a CF blog, live it. The up-and-coming are reading us all of the time to find out how to use this wonderful language. Let's try to show 'em how to do it the right way. You might not follow any guidelines at all, within your development, but this scoping thing is way too important to gloss over, and will only help everyone in the long run.

Well, this was fun! Thanks Aaron.

Well, I've had this on my desktop for two weeks now, so I thought it was time to share. Not entirely accurate. They didn't have any hawaiin (that's not spelled right) shirts on the avatar maker. And where's the props? I need a mic!

Wow! Ok, I'm not a big race fan. Races have two real moments of big excitement, the start and the finish. Other than the occasional wreck it's a bunch of cars going around in circles. Well, that's how I thought.

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Well, It's good to be back (so to speak). I had a nice bout of the stomach flu, and it was no fun. But now I'm back in the saddle and ready to go. I should post the next phase of my EXT UI DataGrid tutorial within the next few days, and I hope to get back to my Creating The View tutorial very shortly (next stop: Mach II).

This very minute, though, I'm sitting in the Nashville International Airport preparing to fly out for the weekend. My stepfather has been asking me, for half a decade now, to join him for the Indy 500. No reason to say no this year, so I'm waiting on a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina where I'll catch a connection to Dayton, Ohio. We're going to check out a few things in John's hometown before making the trip in Sunday for the race. I personally have never been a huge racing fan, but the Indy 500 is an event. It would be kind of like turning down a trip to the Kentucky Derby, the World Series, or the Super Bowl. So, I'm in for the new experience and little time with my step dad.

Which is interesting in regards to my DataGrid tutorial. IndyCar.com is highlighted on the home page of Jack Slocum's Ext JS UI library as a site that uses the javascript components extensively, sporting a cool AJAXified interface that provides real time racing data during Indy races.

So, I'll try to knock out the next installment of my DataGrid tutorial while I wait around in airports. See if I can get this train moving again. I'll also fill you in on the fun of the weekend as I go along.