Amazon.co.uk Review
Allaire's ColdFusion is a web application server for Windows and Linux, enabling developers to build dynamic data-driven sites. This guide assumes some knowledge of HTML, but in other respects it is a complete tutorial from the ground up. The essence of ColdFusion is its markup language, CFML, and the first few chapters explain how it works and introduce the most commonly used tags. Next comes database access, and the authors show how to perform database queries by combining SQL with CFML. Those unfamiliar with SQL will find clear explanations of all the examples. Two chapters on form handling explain how to design input forms and validate the data.
More advanced topics are covered in the second half of the book. The authors explain how to use the ColdFusion Application Framework to manage sessions and clients. There is an introduction to ColdFusion Studio, Allaire's development tool. Other chapters cover scripting and custom tags, and there is a brief look at WDDX, an application of XML for transferring data between ColdFusion and other Web application servers. Security, administration, and performance tuning all receive attention. The book mostly assumes use of Windows, but the last chapter provides a few pages of guidance for Linux users. Finally, Mastering ColdFusion 4.5 has several useful appendices, including detailed references for ColdFusion tags and functions, and a brief one for SQL.
This is a thorough tutorial, useful for reference as well as learning. It also provides a great overview of what ColdFusion can do, ideal for those deciding between this and other technologies such as Active Server Pages, Java Server Pages, and PHP. --Tim Anderson
Product Description
ColdFusion is a dvelopment tool for building complex, interactive web sites. This text provides web developers with a reference to this software, and the companion CD includes evaluation versions of ColdFusion for Windows and Linux and a collection of custom tags.
With an Amazon.co.uk 
