Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself ColdFusion in 21 Days (Teach Yourself -- 21 Days)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, well, what can I say? This book did not get off to a very good start....and I'll tell you why. It is because I already have around 7 breeze block sized computer books, every single one of them has only had perhaps five dozen pages thumbed through before I gave up. They all started with the ubiquitous 'let me let you in on a secret, this stuff is pretty easy etc...'. Then they go off at wild and frustrating tangents leaving you high and dry. ...It says 21 days, but I finished it in 3, pulled up a chair and started coding away!! He mentioned several times in the book that he expects you to be fairly proficient in HTML coding, so I was a bit apprehensive. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Every single tag of HTML is explained along with the ColdFusion stuff. This book not only taught me ColdFusion, but it also taught me both HTML and SQL!! This is totally unbelievable and makes SUCH a refreshing change from the norm! The style could not be criticised, it was humorous, but it was like he had his hand on your shoulder the whole time guiding you through the book and anticipating your every doubt and question and then taking pains to explain each and every step. The front-end back-end connectivity/interfacing issue was always a big mystery to me, until Charles explained it. So was the precise mechanics involved in setting up an e-commerce site. All that is now old hat in my mind and I am well underway to setting up a medium sized online store singlehandedly. In hindsight, had I been asked to pay a $1000 for this book, I would still think it a bargain of a lifetime. The one drawback is that it demystifies ColdFusion and makes it so simple, no holds barred, that those wanting to make a future as CF developers may well find their future under threat if this secret gets out!!! Anyway, go buy it....it's good and worth every purple cent.

If you have never used CF before this is a good book to get you started. Each days lessons are clear and concise, removing any ambiguity other books may create. The end of chapter summaries make a nice review tool allowing you to test your memory about what you have learned. This is probably why Ben Forta endorses this book. Charles Mohnike has filled a niche that seems to be lacking in other books. This is truly a beginners book.

While being a good beginner's lesson book, I would not use it as a day-to-day reference book. This is where both of Ben Forta's books shine. I bought this book for one of the members in my team and once he finished with it, it was placed on the bookshelf and ignored. Everyone prefers to use Ben Forta's books as their reference material.

As new team members come aboard we give them this book to teach them CF, so we are able to recycle its use continually.

Charles Mohnike's, `Teach Yourself ColdFusion in 21 Days', is an excellent tutorial for learning Cold Fusion. Sorry Ben Forta, Mr. Mohnike not only explains it better, but he even finishes up each chapter with a summary, Q&A, a workshop and exercises. All of which drive the lessons home. This book is especially good if you're thinking about taking the Cold Fusion certification course.

After waiting for what seemed like ages I received my CF in 21 days just 2 days ago. I am on page 362 and can't stop reading it. Although I have Ben Forta's Cold Fusion 4.0 Web application construction kit book (another great book) I needed something a little more, and I found it. Charles has a way of explaining things at my not exactly a begginer status. I would recommend this book if your trying to make sense of it all or need to review in simple quick chapters. best part of this book is the fact that by Day 6 which ends on page 128 you have already built a Cold Fusion Application that you can show your friends. Buy it, it's worth it. Only negative things are that the database files on Sam's Publishing site are not there but its not the books fault. Then again you can make the access files yourself in minutes. If you find them let me know. I hope you enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying it.

My only problem with this book was the missing database files, but the publisher (Sams) remedied the problem by posting them to their Web site for download. This book takes a very different approach to CF than Ben Forta's, which for me was a very good thing since I was having trouble understanding Ben's concepts. The Sams book is more of a sit-down-and-learn-it kind of tutorial, while Forta's is more like a reference that's good after you're already up and running with CF. This book is pretty funny too.

If you're an "in the trenches" webmaster, like myself, who has to wear every single digital hat in his/her organization, you can't afford not to buy Sams Teach Yourself ColdFusion in 21 Days. Charles Mohnike deserves triple royalities for this title -- in fact, I wish I could have bought two!

The strength of this work is truly in the writing. Mohnike covers the ins and outs of Cold Fusion with well structured, easilly read chapters that teach, test and empower the reader in his/her quest forward to the next topic. Further, the tone of the text, at times quite humorous, has the feel of having your best, code crunching pal next to you the whole step of the way. Translation: It isn't arrogant and presumptive like so many computer training textbooks on the market.

But, shucks, that's just rhetoric. The proof is always in the pudding. In a little under 8 weeks, I've used Cold Fusion to build 1 extranet site, an interactive vendor index and an online publishing system for my company's online legal newspaper. The latter project - built using the examples offered in the book - saved us from spending $22,000 for an extremely basic content management system.

Any questions?

This book is practical, understandable, detailed, teaches the reader well, and has plenty of examples. The Coldfusion Tag Reference at the end is actually better than the same material in Allaire's documentation because it is formatted to make it easier to read than Allaire's manual. It is written for the novice like the Dummies series, but covers much more material. The beginner may need to read some passages more than once or even twice, just because the material is difficult, but rarely because the concepts aren't explained well. Although it is fun to read because Mohnike is an entertaining writer, it is clear and doesn't contain fluff, or distract you from learning. The writing can even make learning Coldfusion fun, so it would be great for training seminars or teachers (I've been a professor for 25 years). Clearly Mohnike studied earlier Coldfusion books and managed to keep the good and throw out the bad. If you buy one Coldfusion book, this should be it.

If you are new to ColdFusion, but an experienced Web developer, I can tell you from experience that you will gain a lot from this book--fast. It has the typical convenience and layout of all SAMS books, and it has all the content you need to get yourself started in scripting real, practical ColdFusion Web applications.

If you are an expert developer, you really don't need any books. You can gain all you need by looking up ColdFusion reference sites on the Internet. But then, you will find information on all the ColdFusion tags, but may not necessarily find perfect examples all on one site. If you are the type of person who wants easy, smoothly flowing reading before a nights sleep, then this book is definitely for you. It doesn't just tell you what each tag does, but it also tells you practical uses and examples. There's always the tag reference in the appendix in the back of the book.

Plus, half the time you are online you are doing things other than putting effort into learning something like ColdFusion, so by purchasing this book, you will guarantee that you'll learn something about ColdFusion. Having a physical book like this is good reference to have next to you while you are programming the back-end of site, whether it's a shopping cart, content management system, online inquiry form, etc.

I read most of this book as I found the content very valuable, and have afterwards developed a few web sites using ColdFusion. I am now feeling confident with a little more self-study, I will take the Certified ColdFusion Developer examination.

I would actually recommend that you use both this book, as well as get used to the online references of ColdFusion. Since the version of ColdFusion will always change, but the infrastructure of the technology as well as logic will remain the same. You can learn the basics from the book and tweek your understanding of various versions using online references.

Excellent book if you are new to ColdFusion and want somebody to hold your hand and teach you CF step by step. The code for the exercises in this book cannot be found on 'sampublishing.com' as suggested in the book. To get all the code: 1. First connect to the internet. 2. Insert the CD that came with this book and choose 'Book info' option from the displayed menu. 3. Click again on the 'Bookinfo' on the displayed page. This will automatically take you to the right page on mcp.com 4. Choose 'Source Code' and download whatever you need. Note: The file 'Calls.mdb' (incorrectly named as Calls.dbm in the book) which is used in the very 1st chapter is downloadable saperately.

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced ColdFusion developer,this book is great for you.It's complementory to Ben Forta's books. If you want to have just one book for ColdFusion,this one is right for you !!