The principles and fundamental elements of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) are not new to the development world, although for some, there is a hesitancy to engage with OOP as it can be perceived as a confusing or unnecessary method of development.
As you read Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion, you will be guided through the core structure of ColdFusion Components, the foundation of OOP in CFML-based applications, and an introduction to some common design patterns and principles used in object-oriented development.
This book deals with the basic fundamental practices of OOP, including object creation and reuse, Bean objects, service layers, Data Access Objects, and simple design patterns. This is intended to help the reader gain a better understanding of OOP using examples that can be altered and applied into any application.
Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion aims to simplify the understanding of OOP, and dispense with unnecessary jargon and complex diagrams. By taking this more direct approach, this book aims to assist the reader in understanding the principles of OOP, how to implement them into their ColdFusion applications, and help the user extend their development skills in the process.
Using the practical examples within this easy-to-follow guide, you will learn how to structure your applications and code, and apply the fundamental basics of OOP to develop modular and reusable components that will scale easily with your application. This is ideal for any ColdFusion developer looking to break free from writing purely procedural code, and extend and advance their development practices.
If you are a web developer wanting to implement object-oriented programming with ColdFusion, then this book is for you. If your goal is to get a good grounding in the basics of the object-oriented programming concepts, this book is perfect for you. No prior knowledge of object-oriented programming is expected, but basic knowledge of ColdFusion development skills is assumed.
Chapter 1, Introducing ColdFusion Components outlines the basic elements of ColdFusion Components. The reader is guided through the structure of a CFC, arguments, parameters, and encapsulating information.
Chapter 2, Effective Component Development highlights some important attributes and techniques to optimize your component's output. We also investigate introspecting a component as well as providing and reading metadata.
Chapter 3, Building Your First Bean begins the reader's journey into object-oriented development. This chapter focuses on a Bean object, understanding requirements and benefits for using one, and how to set and access properties within the Bean.
Chapter 4, Inheritance and Object-Oriented Concepts starts to explore the world of object-oriented programming in a little more detail. This chapter also introduces some key concepts such as polymorphism and composition.
Chapter 5, Data Access Objects looks at the use of Data Access Objects to access and obtain information from a data source. We'll also look at persisting objects in memory throughout your application.
Chapter 6, Gateways introduces an optional data access method for use in your object-oriented development, and also highlights some extra benefits of code separation to help enable easier code management within your applications.
Chapter 7, Creating a Service Layer introduces the use of facade objects to your application's underlying API / component structure. We also explore object inheritance and options to streamline the existing code within your framework.
To get the most out of this publication, you will require version 8 or 9 of the ColdFusion server. You will also need a SQL database such as SQL server or MySQL to create a database to run the code examples.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Let's take a look at the onApplicatonStart() method as it currently stands within the Application.cfc file."
A block of code is set as follows:
<cfscript>
objProjects = createObject("component", "com.projects.Projects");
</cfscript>
<cfoutput>
The current date is #objProjects.getCurrentDate()#
</cfoutput>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<cffunction name="getAllUsers" access="public" output="false" hint="I run a query of all users within the database table."> <!--- Call the query method from the User Gateway and return the query object. ---> <cfreturn variables.instance.userGW.filterAllUsers() /> </cffunction>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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