Will Belden

Recent Blog Comments By Will Belden

• Collocating My .gitignore Configuration Files With The Omitted Files

  Posted on Jan 8, 2025 at 8:30 PM

  @Ben Nadel, Regarding .gitkeep, since I hadn't heard of it I googled it, some folks (okay, StackOverflow) think a README might be a better choice, with explanations if not obvious. I would probably agree with that, since .gitkeep isn't "official", though you could put text in ... read more »

• Collocating My .gitignore Configuration Files With The Omitted Files

  Posted on Jan 8, 2025 at 4:16 PM

  @Ben Nadel, Nope. Maybe he considers ignored files a personal selection.... read more »

• Collocating My .gitignore Configuration Files With The Omitted Files

  Posted on Jan 8, 2025 at 4:09 PM

  Our main dev/architect has forbidden me from committing any .gitignore files! Ha.... read more »

• Free Online Version Of My Feature Flags Book

  Posted on Jan 2, 2025 at 4:01 PM

  If you'll publish this on Amazon / Kindle, I'll actually probably finish reading it!... read more »

• Considering A Secure Encoding Technique Inspired By JWT In ColdFusion

  Posted on Nov 21, 2024 at 3:05 PM

  So, I couldn't find all the code(mostly because I didn't write it), but we have an in-house cache and all the servers involved in that cache (usually a user server and a scheduled server) talk to each other to say "hey, I've updated this database record so clear any CFC's that represent... read more »

• Rebuilding Incident Commander As A ColdFusion App

  Posted on Nov 21, 2024 at 12:45 AM

  @Ben Nadel, You could look at JSON web tokens, too. But encrypted to a single, URL-safe string. IIRC JSON web tokens are plain-text, but there's a signature or something on them that your server can verify. Been a while since I've looked at them. You know... since we're brainstorming! ... read more »

• Rebuilding Incident Commander As A ColdFusion App

  Posted on Nov 18, 2024 at 10:08 PM

  @Danilo Celic Ben has the code available on Github: View this code in my Incident Commander project on GitHub. That's in the OP.... read more »

• Rebuilding Incident Commander As A ColdFusion App

  Posted on Nov 18, 2024 at 3:26 PM

  Sounds like it'd be fun to add Slack integration. If I could ever get two nickel's worth of time to rub together, I'd be glad to chip in!... read more »

• Feature Flags Book Playground, Videos, And Code

  Posted on Oct 28, 2024 at 2:06 PM

  Just WOW! This is so in-depth and honestly, should have its own website, not just a blog entry. I wish more authors/developers/creators built sites like this to truly explain things. (Think Traefik, etc.) Great job, Ben!... read more »

• Making A Case For Var Declarations In ColdFusion Templates

  Posted on Oct 12, 2024 at 2:57 PM

  I've actually gotten into the strong habit of using local. for just about everything. I rarely use var anymore. Developing primarily on top of Coldbox, all the views run (I think as includes) within a function somewhere. Also, local. works in straight .cfm files, too, which I ofte... read more »

• Experimenting With Low-Level SQLite Access In Lucee CFML

  Posted on Aug 12, 2024 at 7:19 PM

  Hey @BenNadel did you have any problems with NullPointerException's during your testing? Doing a new (tiny) project, though "Hey, sqlite would be perfect!" Got all my data loaded via [some sql ui]. Started up my site in Commandbox, but I'll be $% $( if I can get the thing to ... read more »

• Code Isn't Magical, It's Just A Series Of Commands

  Posted on Aug 1, 2024 at 2:30 PM

  Who relies on the outputs? is the key question here. Without that information, thoroughly testing a refactor IS scary. Now, proper test case coverage can drastically reduce that fear, but... who has 100% coverage? As for output reliance, that way our particular code is structured, aside f... read more »

• Creating A ColdFusion-Oriented HashCode With Loose Types

  Posted on Jul 3, 2024 at 2:34 PM

  Does it only work with simple values? Or can you stuff it with objects (like Java objects, CFC's, etc.) and it still do the work? How's the speed?... read more »

• Using An Ordered Struct As A Fixed-Size Cache In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jul 2, 2024 at 2:43 PM

  Makes sense. I mean, I've done my share of in-object caching with structs, to be sure. I've never limited by quantity that way, but I see the idea. With code at work, we use Cachebox within Coldbox. I don't think it has a limited-quantity ruleset. Maybe they should add it!... read more »

• Using An Ordered Struct As A Fixed-Size Cache In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jul 2, 2024 at 2:24 PM

  What would you say is the advantage of the struct style vs. an array of 10 items like: [ { "Key-100": "Value-100"} , { "Key-99": "Value-99"} ... ]... read more »

• Adobe ColdFusion Parses JSON Into Non-Ordered Structs

  Posted on Jul 1, 2024 at 7:45 PM

  I recently (6 months ago?) discovered ordered structs. I love 'em! But not for "important" order, but so that when I dump the objects they look like the order I built them in. I would say that ACF should, however, convert to using ordered structs with deserializeJSON(), since it ... read more »

• Core Decision Functions Will Accept Null / Undefined Values In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jun 25, 2024 at 2:16 PM

  @Ben Nadel, Huge fan of Lucee, but we don't use it at work. :( All my personal projects, though, any any self-business, is definitely Lucee. CommandBox prefers it, as well. Also, when it comes to work stuff, I'd rather be verbose than clever when it comes to some things. Even using ?: c... read more »

• Core Decision Functions Will Accept Null / Undefined Values In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jun 25, 2024 at 1:57 PM

  I have definitely noticed this behavior and this really does clarify it. I'll get a bug report about using: (forget to define) if( len(local.EmailAddress))... in code I wrote the same day as len(local.User.getEmailAddress()) which works fine. (Or something similar.) Also, almo... read more »

• Experimenting With Low-Level SQLite Access In Lucee CFML

  Posted on Jun 12, 2024 at 8:51 PM

  @Peter, you make a good point, in fact, a lot of the Coldbox materials do "mocking" (via the Mockbox system and the querySim() function) that is just what you need for PoC things. Pretty sure, too, you're supposed to be able to use Mockbox even if you don't have a Coldbox app. ... read more »

• Experimenting With Low-Level SQLite Access In Lucee CFML

  Posted on Jun 5, 2024 at 9:17 PM

  @Ben Nadel, Will definitely watch that. Interestingly, though, I wasn't able to get it working at all with Commandbox / Lucee. Maybe if I had copied the jar into the [site]/lucee/lib manually, but .... just didn't want to do that, esp. for my "scratch" site as I often flip ACF/... read more »