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Category: ColdFusion Development
CF Book Suggestions

Hello all,

I am a CF beginner - I'm just get getting started with ColdFusion. I was really excited to find this forum and the lively, positive discussion going on here

Thanks to cfgeek for that amazing list of CF Resources. You did a fantastic job which is greatly appreciated.

I was wondering if people could share their thoughts on some of the books out there, that you'd suggest for a beginner. I have some coding under my belt, very comfortable with HTML and I spend most of my time on Lin/Unix as a sysadmin. I haven't done anything with web-scripting and I'm also just beginning to learn SQL.

There are two that I'm currently considering:

Coldfusion MX with Dreamweaver MX (http://www.newriders.com/isapi/product_id~%7B0F2970E5-52AE-46C7-937D-D1B8D0D3931C%7D/books/product.asp)
Programming ColdFusion (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coldfusion2/)

These seem to have some great reviews online. Does anyone have experience with them? Any other books that you'd recommend.

We're also running CF5; I'm wondering if books about CFMX will be applicable or if there is too much that is different.

Thanks for any and all suggestions...

I haven't read the O'Reilly one (in fact I've managed to put off buying any CFMX book so far - thank god for the internet), but coming from them I think it's a safe bet. On the other hand, if you're looking for a "getting started with CF"-type book, this might not be it. If that's the case, take a look at Ben Forta's ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit (http://www.forta.com/books/0321125169/). The trouble with that kind of book is that you might outgrow it quickly, though.

Can you point me in the right direction for a description of the differences between CF 5 and MX? I'm having trouble finding something like at the Macromedia site - perhaps I'm just missing it...

Thanks for the suggesting Forta's Book!

Originally posted by syoebius
Can you point me in the right direction for a description of the differences between CF 5 and MX?

Try this webmonkey article (http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/34/index3a.html?tw=programming).

I know you didn't ask about it, but I'd like to warn people about
the CF MX for Dummies book.

It is full of typos and has a major error related to the name of the
sample datasource they use in the examples.

I spent 3 full days on this learning very little.....

I then got the Sams Coldfusion MX book and learned more in a
few hours than I did from the dummies book.

I usually like the Dummies books, I have one on Perl and one on
PHP & SQL which are both great....

But CF MX for Dummies is terrible.... AVOID

Try Ben Forta's ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit. I has a lot of useful information along with a trail of CF MX, Flash MX, and Dreamweaver MX. The tutorials are also very good.http://www.forta.com/books/0321125169/

Ben Forta's books are great for relatively basic and intermediate CFMX info. For more high-end info look at the CFMX Bible.










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