Have you ever wondered what the <!DOCTYPE> tag is used for? Have you even given it any thought or just simply used whatever version of the tag is included in your usual html template? Although in the past this tag has been something which could be easily overlooked with little to no adverse side affects, with W3C standards compliance on the rise, the DOCTYPE tag is no longer something to be ignored.

We have a client who recently moved from CF5 to CF7. We did all the normal things you would do during a migration like this.

• Check the code for known issues
• Run the analyzer to check anything you might not see / know
• Double check the code
• Test on a development environment
• Retest, recheck, yada yada yada

So I was a little miffed when their automated email script wasn’t working properly. I checked the code and at first thought it was an issue with the SQL query but after about 40 minutes of poking around that turned out not to be the case. So I commented out the cfmail tags, threw in some cflog tags and started to look at the code as it executed (I’ve become a huge fan of the cflog tag).

After the first run through I immediately saw the issue. Because of the large number of subscribers requesting the emails, we write a portion of the email to a text file and store it on the server so we can retrieve it later on in the code. These text files are typically deleted and recreated at the start of the scheduled task. My log messages were telling me that we were skipping the first two files, one of which happened to be the body of the emails I was investigating.

Further digging into the code I found where the CF5 developer had diligently coded his query loop to start at row 3. I had an idea why this was, but it wasn’t till I talked to a developer in my shop with actual experience in CF5 that my suspicion was confirmed.  In CF 5 if you looped over a directory list, you had to start at row 3, because row 1 was ‘.’ And row 2 was ‘..’, BUT in CF 6 & 7 this was changed so the ‘.’ and ‘..’ are ignored. This is something I didn’t realize during the migration and it’s not something the code analyzer would not catch since the code is legitimate.

So, a word to the wise, if you’re upgrading from CF5 do a quick search on your code for “ startrow=’3’ ” and see if maybe those attributes need to be removed.

Why do you use ColdFusion? This is a question Digital Positions gets every once in a while from prospective clients and even the occasional current client. Typically it’s brought about because they heard about some other language (PHP, ASP, .NET), or they’ve spoken to a “one-system” shop (“We only use Microsoft!” or “Give me Sun or give me death!”) who had less-than-positive things to say about ColdFusion. Digital Positions loves it when this happens because it gives us a chance to have the real conversation ... It’s not about the code, it’s about the application!

Yes, as a company Digital Positions made a strategic decision to use ColdFusion as our primary development environment. We chose ColdFusion over the many other options out there, because it allows our team to quickly and efficiently develop complex solutions .... Our applications are faster, more stable and out of production more rapidly than with other languages or environments.

So, solutions that are stable, robust and faster to market ... Now do you understand why we have chosen ColdFusion?

However, as a matter of course, we do not limit ourselves. In the real world, expertise in other languages and environments is required  We have the ability to develop in PHP, ASP, .NET and Java when client projects demand.

In the end the language used to develop your site should not be the deciding factor. Your users typically don’t care what it’s coded in, they just want to get the information they need or to purchase the product they want quickly and easily. So leave the architecture to the web developers and concentrate on satisfying your users, hitting your revenue goals and getting that next promotion.