Cold Fusion F& E Web Develo W/C [With CDROM]

This is a great book for an experienced web developer who needs to jump right in and get learning. If you already have a background in development, this book will help you transition quickly into Coldfusion. Anyone without experience will likely be lost, but that is why it is labeled at the Intermediate level. This book will help you greatly if you have a quick learning curve. You will definitely need to get something more in-depth and something that you can use as a handy reference when you get over that initial learning curve, this book is neither.

I thought that this book cuts through a lot of the formalities and gets down to what you want to do. This book allows someone with little to no experience with ColdFusion a chance to get your hands dirty right away. My only criticism of this book is that it could be a little more detailed on why somethings work the way they do. However, if you want to get started coding solid ColdFusion programs, and develop your general knowledge of the basics of ColdFusion, this book is great. On the other hand if you want more indepth explaination, buy one of those 800+ paged books written by Ben Forta, or one of the others.

I needed a quick jump start on getting into ColdFusion for my employer. I checked out the Forta book and the Mastering book, but they were both way too involved to get me started in a hurry. This book got me exactly what I needed, when I needed it.The topics covered just enough material to allow me to produce results immediately. My boss was ecstatic.On the downside, the comments about the typeface in the screen shots are valid, but this did not hinder me from learning what I needed to know. The code is on the CD and it was easier to go from there anyway.I highly recommend this book for beginners in ColdFusion.

Out of all the ColdFusion books out there, if you are trying to get a really quick handle on the program, this is the book. It falls short on a lot of topics (arrays, basic output formatting, etc) but has enough meat in it to get any novice on their way. Once you've dog-eared and coffe-stained this book, without a doubt move onto one of the Mastering series books, but without a doubt, start here. I thought the screen captures were very helpful, and the content very digestable. You can't beat the price either!

Obviously this book does not carry the same weight as the 800-1000 page Forta and Danesh books, but T.C. Bradley does an excellent job of covering the basics. The book is more of a "how-to" than a ColdFusion language reference. There are screenshots throughout the book, and the information is well organized and flows well from chapter to chapter. Full of "real world" examples, I would recommend the book to novice and intermediate level CF developers.