Mike Benner: 30, hmm, Days of Coldfusion 8

30, hmm, Days of Coldfusion 8

Oct 31 by Michael Benner

Well, that was a long 30 days...Yeah, I was using the metric system for my 30 days. Well, I have used Coldfusion 8. I actually have it running on two Virtual Systems locally on my Mac in Developer Edition, I have it running on a Development server and running on 2 of my 5 production servers, yup I said 2, not 4 or 5. I am still running a legacy app on CF5 (until Monday at least) and the rest are running on CFMX7 and this is do to a few things, 2 of which have to do with some strange issues I experienced with CF8.

Now the first issue has been addressed with a Hot Fix and I can't give Adobe enough credit for the speed at which they got this issue resolved (I had a beta patch in my hands 48 hours after the first report). It is surprising that it wasn't caught before release, but we all know how those things can go ourselves.

The second issue is related to a 3rd party piece of software that hasn't be upgraded since 2002 and doesn't like new flavors of Java (not known until now). So not really CF8's fault, but its use of a newer JRE means that things went horribly wrong. You see I set this site up in the development environment and 0 issues (as expected). Everything went great, we ran it through its paces used the vital services (you know the ones that rely on this 3rd party software) and if functioned flawlessly.

So I flew out to CA and spent a weekend in our data center migrating site after site, upgrading server after server. Things seemed OK Monday when I left for Raleigh(home) on Tuesday. Sites were running smoothly and people were happy. When I land Wednesday morning (you know 8am after a red eye, that didn't get its name because you sleep well on the plane) my phone goes crazy. It has hit the fan.

I have three options at this point. Since I am still at the airport buy another ticket and head back, get home and start that restore procedure that has NEVER been tested, or bite the bullet and bring this client in to 2007 on my dime (for evidently missing something). I opt for #3. I call my client on the drive to the house and talk them down from the edge of their window, while trying to get the guys in CA ready for when the West Coast wakes up and begins to experience the same problem.

It was a long day and I will write about it in detail and its problems another time, just thinking about it made me tired again.

With the negative out of the way, lets get to the positive, because it far outweighs everything else. Where to start...Speed? Yup, its faster, but you know what, it really pointed out some issues in my code, that can be improved on older sites. What else? AJAX, yup it is in there and from my limited playing with it, it is extremely slick. CFWindow, one of my favorite new tags, but watch the overuse, sometimes writing your own Javascript is still better. CFPresentation, while I have only played with it, has my mind overwhelmed with some possibilities.

I also look at sites I did in the past that had large file uploads that where unzip and the photos in them thumbnailed and watermarked. This was full of problems using CFMX and even CFMX7. Third party java classes for image editing and unzipping. Then I am sure we all know what a difficult time it can be when it comes to uploading large (50+MB) files through a form over HTTP to Coldfusion. CFImage and CFZip solve two of the above natively now and I am sure have a much tighter implementation. But more importantly is how CF8 now handles large file uploads and the fact it won't kill your server like it used to.

While what I thought was going to be 30 days and make for some good content, turned into 60+ days and made for some great frustrations and interesting stories. I am still a strong advocate of CF8 and ALL the great new things that it brings to the market. If you have not done so already, download the trial and play with it, it is well worth the effort.