The first issue has not been sent out yet as I wait for my subscribers, but I promise to only provide useful, pragmatic JavaScript and Dojo programming techniques as well as up-to-date industry news.

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Getting StartED with Dojo is finally available for purchase! About nine months ago I was approached by Apress to author a book on the Dojo toolkit. After a long journey of authoring my first book, the final phase is complete as the book is now officially published and out in the wild. While the actual publish date was December 28th, I’m sure it will be a little while before you start seeing it on the shelves of popular brick and mortar bookstore shelves such as Borders and Barnes & Noble. For now, you can certainly order it on Amazon.

Getting StartED with Dojo has fan page on Facebook:
Getting StartED with Dojo | Promote Your Page Too

You may also follow @startdojo on Twitter for up to date news and information relating to the Dojo toolkit and community.

I will mostly be using this site for updates to the book such as corrections to the code and copy. In addition, I will be posting tips and resources for learning more about the Dojo toolkit. A lot of work went into the creation of this book and I hope you enjoy it.

They’ve said that all of their deals are limited in quantity but will line up new items after they sell out throughout the day.

Visit Amazon.com’s Black Friday Deals

With that, I’ve also been working on a very large project at work that I’m one of the technical leads on. That project is the Gap Casting Call which is a contest that Gap runs every year to find the next faces of BabyGap and GapKids. They partnered with us at Family.com to build and host the online photo contest. Enter your kids to get a chance at winning! There are a lot of great prizes and a lot of great entries!

On to my next project at work where I get to learn and use GWT. More to come in the future I’m sure. Until then, thanks for staying up to date with me, and sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted.

With that, here is my comment to Brian’s response to this debate:

I agree with you, Brian, in that his post may have been partly about the aspect you allude to. However, I also feel there is a real frustration in what he is really expressing with OO and CF. I noticed this same type of demeanor with some folks over the years when I strongly worked with CF. I myself have a Java background and as such tried to make CF follow the patterns and paradigms in the way that Java did. At the same time, I also recognized where CF fell short and thus worked with CF in it’s capacity as opposed to trying to get it to fit into the same context that Java is in.

With that, I encouraged other folks who worked with me to learn the better structured concepts of OO and MVC patterns and using the right mix of frameworks, such as a MVC, ORM, and IOC framework. The problem is, if you don’t understand these concepts from a fundamental level from the beginning without ever mixing CF in, they can be very overwhelming and start to crush the positive attitude that a CFML programmer may have.

Much of the time I also felt that parts of the community were pushing the use of so many patterns it was ridiculous and I think this is the storm that perhaps Marc was feeling.

To reiterate, I do feel that what you mentioned could be an underlying tone and perhaps fueling of anger and frustration, but at the same time I know from other CFML developers that I used to work with, his feelings at that show on the surface are valid and understood.

I think that most of the expert CFML developers in the community know and understand the limitations of the technology. Keep in mind, however, limitations is defined by what the requirements of a project are. Projects’ requirements should be written around the technology being used. Perhaps ColdFusion doesn’t have limitations in the sense of the word when it comes to “industry standard patterns”. From it’s beginning, it has always defined it’s own set of patterns that work for the CFML workflow. Developer’s need to understand to not try to redefine something that doens’t need to be redefined. If they have different needs in a project that are strong enough to fully set the project’s scope outside the circle of ColdFusion, then they need to choose a different technology.

CF continues to have a strong closely-knit community, something I have always enjoyed about it. Embrace the community, but don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s up to you how you want to program your applications. And yes patterns are good, but don’t overdo it. Allow yourself to focus on the tasks at hand as well as having good design at the same time. True, not EVERYTHING needs to be “OO”.

Finally, change rarely comes at the perfect time. As web developers, the past 5 years or so have been changing very rapidly with new languages, patterns, frameworks, libraries coming out every day it seems. Don’t focus on being up to date on every single one and figure out how you can use each of them in your next project. Pick and choose what you want to learn and learn it well. In a time such as now, stick with what you know cause you need to hold on for a little bit longer, there are some rough winds up ahead.

I’m serious when I say don’t redefine something that is not meant to be that in the first place. I always uphold innovation in it’s highest regards, but there is innovation and then there is redefinition. They are NOT the same thing, so stop!

Plus, get in on the hourly Gold Box deals (also shown below) from midnight to 11pm on Black Friday.

Finally, vote on the six products with crazy deals you want to see on Black Friday by participating in the Amazon Customers Vote end-of-year promotion.

Bookmark this post so you can keep an eye on these Gold Box deals and lightning deals as they happen:

Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1.
There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as ‘Bankruptcy Planning.’ Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.

It seems Amazon.com gift cards are probably the safest bet.

• Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
• Ann Taylor 117 stores nationwide closing
• Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
• Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
• Cache will close all stores
• Talbots closing down specialty stores
• J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
• GAP closing 85 stores
• Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
• Wickes Furniture closing down
• Levitz closing down remaining stores
• Bombay closing remaining stores
• Acorn closing down remaining 36 stores (owned by Christopher & Banks / C.J. Banks)
• Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
• Whitehall closing all stores
• Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
• Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January
• Home Depot closing 15 stores
• Macys to close 9 stores after January
• Linens and Things closing all stores
• Movie Galley Closing all stores
• Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
• Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
• JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
• Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores
• Wilson Leather closing down all stores
• Sharper Image closing down all stores
• K B Toys closing 356 stores
• Lowe’s to close down some stores
• Dillard’s to close some stores

Enjoy!

Get yours as they are going by fast!

This new feature is an attempt to bring in the great social networking benefits that the Internet offers to the moms and families that visit this site. It’s a place where they can start groups and topics on anything related to family and children. They will connect with other folks who are in the same boat as they are to comfort them that they are not alone.

The site incorporates the latest technologies such as: Java 6, Spring, Hibernate, DWR, AJAX, DHTML, and many other “Web 2.0″ features.

Go to Family.com and click on “Community” to create your own avatar and family. Then invite other friends and family to join as well!