Brian Kotek:
Inversion of Control

It's been a while since I've blogged, as you might guess I've been really busy. I do plan to dive back into blogging again after the conference, both here and at the Alagad blog. But right now my focus is on wrapping up some tasks so that my time at CFUnited is used to it's full potential!

I'm presenting on Friday on Introduction to Object-Oriented Modeling and Design. I've tweaked the presentation a bit since I gave it last, based partly on the podcast that Hal, Ben Nadel and I did a few weeks ago. If you're interested in what helps make "good" OO design, I hope the presentation will be helpful. Again, let me point out that the presentation isn't an introduction to OO, I'm assuming attendees already understand what a class is, what an object is, etc. This presentation is talking about OO at a more general level, in terms of how sets of objects actually work together.

My tentative schedule for the conference is attached to this entry, so if you'd like to chat about OO, CF, Flex, Groovy, or just about anything else, feel free to catch up with me. I'll also most likely be a regular at any evening gatherings at the hotel bar. ;-)

Anyway, I hope to see you this week in DC! Until then!

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I'm a bit late with this, but better late than never! In my defense, the last few weeks have been pretty crazy with the conference arriving and joining Alagad. I'll be posting to the Alagad Team Blog going forward as well, but I'll do my best to keep that focused on interesting things learned on work projects, and keep my personal blog for covering my own thoughts, personal code experiments, and updates to my RIAForge projects.

With that said, let's talk CF.Objective(). Overall, the conference was excellent, which wasn't really surprising all! :-) The networking and hallway/dinner/bar discussions were always insightful. I got to see a number of friends whom I unfortunately only catch up with at conferences, like Chris Scott, Peter Bell, Barney Boisvert, and Mark Mandel. It's one thing to have email and IM chats, but quite another to be able to bounce ideas around over beers for 3 hours!

I attended several good sessions, like the Mate Framework (even though I'm a Swiz fan, Mate is pretty sweet), ColdBox, and Test Driven Development. Unfortunately, I missed the opening keynote in place of sleeping in, since my flight was delayed and I didn't get in until about 3 am and I was speaking at 10 am.

Speaking of...speaking, I did give two presentations, one on OO Modeling and Design, and one on Open-Source Enterprise Java and CF. I thought both went pretty well, though I had more time to prepare for the OO talk. I finished a bit early on the Java talk, but the Q&A session was full of interesting discussion, so all in all I think it was good. If you did see me speak, PLEASE fill out the session survey forms: OO Modeling and Design and Open-Source Enterprise Java and CF. I really do read what people have to say and try to use it to improve my future presentations!

Anyway, next stop should be CFUnited! Hopefully I'll see many of the same folks there, as well as some friends who couldn't make it to Minneapolis, and any new folks who'd like to talk (if it's geeky, just about anything goes!)

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I'm packing up for my flight up to Minneapolis and am looking forward to seeing everyone and delivering my presentations on OO Design and Open Source Enterprise Java with CF! I also wanted to mention that I'm joining Alagad full time next week, so I'll be representing them and wearing some of their swag at the conference. I will still be contracting at Broadchoice to help them with the Workspace product, but won't be an official employee any longer.

After the conference, I'll find more time to blog, now that the move is over (both to Alagad and into a new house!) It's been a crazy few weeks!

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Last week I posted a quick entry about my presentation at cf.Objective() 2009 on Object-Oriented Design and Modeling. Whether you're planning to attend the conference or not, please spend a minute or two and answer my very short survey on how CF developers view and use OOP:

ColdFusion Developer OOP Survey

Feel free to forward the link around, I'd really like to try and get a wide cross section of people to take it. My hope is to use the results to tailor my presentation, but I'll also post the results online in a week or two for anyone who's interested. Thanks in advance for your help!

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I'm a few days late with this, but I just wanted to mention that I'll be speaking at this year's cf.Objective() conference. The topic is "OO Modeling and Design", and if the schedule stays as it is, I'll be giving it at 10:15 am on May 14th.

I'm still thinking about exactly what I want to discuss and how I want to go about it, but here is the general idea that I used for my topic's abstract:

Object-oriented programming is quickly becoming the norm among ColdFusion developers. Unfortunately, OO can be hard to wrap one's head around, and confusion is rampant.

Join Brian Kotek as he explores OO modeling and design. Topics will include:

• The basics of UML and class diagrams
• Thinking about the model
• Design principles
• Indicators of design quality
• Theory meets real life

OO is widely understood to deliver the biggest benefit for complex applications that leverage large, behavior-rich domain models. One area that Brian wants to consider is the role of OO techniques applied to "normal" ColdFusion applications. Since many CF apps are "data-centric", what advantages (if any) are gained from adopting OOP for that kind of application? Come to this session to gain a foundation in OO modeling and add your voice to the discussion.

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