One Long Test

When I first started writing unit tests with JUnit, I didn't read any books, follow blogs, or otherwise attempt to be the best test writer I could be. I wanted to crank out code, crank out tests, and see the green bar. In fact, my tests looked a lot like this:

public void testGetRequestBeansByIDType() {
    Integer requestID=8;
    Integer statusID=4;
    Integer systemID=1;
    Integer processTypeID=1;
    String inList="0,4,5,6,7,8";
    
    String requestIDSQL = "Select count(*) as NumRequests from " +
        "requests where requestid="+requestID;
    
    String statusIDSQL = "Select count(*) as NumRequests from " +
        "requests where statusid="+statusID;
    
    String systemIDSQL = "Select count(*) as NumRequests from " +
        "requests where systemid="+systemID;
    
    String processIDSQL = "Select count(*) as NumRequests from " +
        "requests where processTypeID="+processTypeID;
    
    String inSQL = "Select count(*) as NumRequests from " +
        "requests where RequestID IN("+inList+")";
    
    try {
        //test requestID
        HashMap<String,Object> row = dbops.getRow(requestIDSQL,1);
        int count = ((Integer)row.get("numrequests")).intValue();
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests 
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("RequestID",requestID.toString(),"");
        assertEquals(count,requests.size());
        System.out.println("RequestID rows is " + requests.size());
        
        //test statusID
        HashMap<String,Object> row2 = dbops.getRow(statusIDSQL,1);
        int count2 = ((Integer)row2.get("numrequests")).intValue();
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests2
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("StatusID",statusID.toString(),"");
        assertEquals(count2,requests2.size());
        System.out.println("statusID rows is " + requests2.size());
        
        //test systemid
        HashMap<String,Object> row3 = dbops.getRow(systemIDSQL,1);
        int count3 = ((Integer)row3.get("numrequests")).intValue();
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests3
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("SystemID",systemID.toString(),"");
        assertEquals(count3,requests3.size());            
        System.out.println("systemID rows is " + requests3.size());
        
        //test ProcessTypeID
        HashMap<String,Object> row4 = dbops.getRow(processIDSQL,1);
        int count4 = ((Integer)row4.get("numrequests")).intValue();
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests4
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("ProcessTypeID",processTypeID.toString(),"");
        assertEquals(count4,requests4.size()); 
        System.out.println("ProcessTypeID rows is " + requests4.size());
        
        
        //test IN() statements
        HashMap<String,Object> row5 = dbops.getRow(inSQL,1);
        int count5 = ((Integer)row5.get("numrequests")).intValue();
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests5
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("RequestID",inList,"");
        assertEquals(count5,requests5.size());
        System.out.println("IN rows is " + requests5.size());
        
        // test order by....
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests6
            = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("StatusID","3","RequestID Desc");
        RequestBean rb = requests6.get(0);
        RequestBean rb2 = requests6.get(1);
        assertTrue(rb.getRequestID() > rb2.getRequestID());
        
        ArrayList<RequestBean> requests7
        = dbops.getRequestBeansByIDType("StatusID","3","RequestID asc");
        RequestBean rb3 = requests7.get(0);
        RequestBean rb4 = requests7.get(1);
        assertTrue(rb4.getRequestID() > rb3.getRequestID());
    } catch (Exception e) {
       fail("getRow should not have returned an error");
    }
   
}

<!--- basic tests to make sure the 'outer' logic is right--->
<cffunction name="recipientsWithAffectedLetterCode_Should_GetPhoneNumberCoordinates" returntype="void" access="public">
        <cfset var coordinates = "">
        <cfloop list="#affectedLetterCodes#" index="code">                    
                <cfset coordinates = getCoordinatesWithWCRBCD("JH89",code)>     
                <cfset assertTrue( StructCount(coordinates) GT 0,"Coordinates struct should not have been empty for #code# but was." )>
        </cfloop>
</cffunction>

<cffunction name="recipientsWithoutAffectedLetterCode_ShouldNot_GetPhoneNumberCoordinates" returntype="void" >                        
        <cfset var coordinates = "">
        <cfloop list="#unaffectedLetterCodes#" index="code">
                <cfset coordinates = getCoordinatesWithWCRBCD("junk",code)>     
                <cfset assertTrue( StructIsEmpty(coordinates),"Coordinates struct should have been empty for #code# but was not. It had keys: #StructKeyList(coordinates)#" )>
        </cfloop>
</cffunction>

<!--- more granular tests for the specifics of which number to get;
yes, this duplicates the logic in the production code. So be it. --->
<cffunction name="WCRBCD_JH89_gets_2011_PhoneNumber" output="false" access="public" returntype="any" hint="">
        <cfset var coordinates = getCoordinatesWithWCRBCD("JH89")>
        <cfset assertEquals("866.420.2011",coordinates.PhoneNumber,"")>               
</cffunction>

<cffunction name="WCRBCD_MK01_gets_9446_PhoneNumber" output="false" access="public" returntype="any" hint="">
        <cfset var coordinates = getCoordinatesWithWCRBCD("MK01")>
        <cfset assertEquals("866.356.9446",coordinates.PhoneNumber,"")>       
</cffunction>

<cffunction name="WCRBCD_NotMK01AndNotJH89_gets_7436_PhoneNumber" output="false" access="public" returntype="any" hint="">
        <cfset var coordinates = getCoordinatesWithWCRBCD("NOTMK01")>
        <cfset assertEquals("866.281.7436",coordinates.PhoneNumber,"")>       
</cffunction>

“#coldfusion 9 tip -grab a handle on the iterator of an array by calling someArray.iterator(). then u can use that in script FOR/WHILE loops!"

I never thought of that, so I wanted to give it a whirl.

<cfscript>
//pre-cf8
list = "one,two,three,four";
a = listToArray(list);
for(i=1; i LTE ArrayLen(a); i=i+1){
        writeoutput(a[i]);
}

//traditionally, with cf8+ syntax
a = ["one","two","three","four"];
for(i=1; i <= ArrayLen(a); i++){
        writeoutput(a[i]);
}

//with an iterator
//uncomment if you want to see what's available: writedump(a.iterator());
iter = a.iterator();
while(iter.hasNext()){
        el = iter.next();
        writeOutput(el);
}
</cfscript>

Warning: don’t try to skip the iter = a.iterator() and el = iter.next() steps in an effort to save a few lines of code! If you try to loop while(a.iterator().hasNext()), you’ll get stuck in an endless loop because you’ll be returning a new iterator each time. And each time you call iter.next(), you’re advancing through the array; thus, doing writeOutput(iter.next()); doSomethingWithThisElement(iter.next()); will give you very different results from what you’re expecting. You’ve been warned.

Thanks for the tip, Micky!

The Skinny

I commute about 45 miles each way from Pennsylvania to the Baltimore burbs. Generally, I am not a fan of this commute. However, as one who likes turning the proverbial lemons into lemonade, I’ve found that podiobooks and podcasts are a great way to spend the 90+ minutes a day in the car. I try out all different kinds of podcasts, and more often than not I delete them from my iTunes after a few episodes. With the new TWiCF podcast, I think I’ve found a keeper.

Episode 4 of This Week in ColdFusion (TWiCF) was released on October 19. I had seen mention of this new CF podcast a few weeks back, and it came across my radar today, when I was in front of the computer with easy access to iTunes. So I subscribed and listened to this latest episode on commute home from work.

In short, I like it! It’s relatively quick paced, the guys have good podcast voices, and the content is fun and informative.

While listening, however, I wished I had a good way to take notes because I wanted to speak to a few items. Rather than hijack their comments thread, I figured I’d use this blog instead. Beats hearing about unit testing, don’t it?

Without further adieu, some points I’d like to make:

ColdFusion Builder Pricing

Where did Mike get that $250 number? I have it on good sources from my inside-Adobe operatives that the price is somewhere between “We ain’t telling you” and “STFU and quit asking”. (My quotes). So, please, don’t believe any numbers anyone says about CFB until you hear it from CFB’s PM, Adam Lehman.

Debugging in Eclipse

Let there be no question: you can use Eclipse, right now, for free, and do step debugging on your CFML. Provided you’re running CF8, all you need is the ColdFusion 8.01 Eclipse extensions. Once installed, it’s a matter of a 2-minute setup and then off you go. For an outstanding introduction to using the debugger, see Charlie Arehart’s CFMeetup presentation. While I’m at it… check UGTV often. It’s a veritable gold mine of CF content.

You can set “watchpoints” as well so you don’t have to scroll through gazillions of variables. I will say, though, that I personally hate being in a debugger. I figure if I’m in a step debugger, then either my app is to complicated or my unit tests are not helping me. Just sayin’ is all.

So, key words: CF8, Eclipse, Free, Easy.

Full CFScript and CFEclipse

The guys talked a bit about the enhanced cfscript support in CF9. In particular, the fact that you can write components without any tags at all:

component {
 public Order function init(required numeric id, array items = ArrayNew(1), String shippingMode="StandardShipping" ){
  StructAppend(variables,arguments);
  return this;
 }

 public void function dumpVars(){
  writeDump(variables);
 }
}

The problem in CFEclipse, as they mentioned, is that these files look like you’re editing in notepad when you open them in CFE. Good point, guys. I’ve emailed the CFE dev group to see what the level of effort would be to get the syntax highlighting working correctly.

Snippets WishList

One of the guys – I think it was Micky – mentioned a feature he’d like to see in Snippets, based on his work with Visual Studio. Essentially, he described the ability to type a trigger, and then have the cursor “follow” you as you “tab through” so you could type in what you wanted to type. I believe the Eclipse equivalent of this is functionality called “Templates”. Before I talk about templates and CFEclipse, though, let’s talk about what you get with the Snippets that already exist.

You can already get this behavior, or at least a “pretty good” version, in snippets as they’re currently implemented. I’ve found that for the (way too few) people who use snippets, this is something they don’t know about. I’m talking about “Variables”, and they are the cats pajamas. I wrote about this a while back, so I encourage you to spend 10 minutes sharpening the saw to save yourself hours cutting.

Now, onto Templates. Fortunately, Denny Valliant recently added an initial implementation of this feature into CFEclipse. Unfortunately, the CFEclipse team didn’t publicize it at all and so no one really knows about it. So it’s time to talk about them. Please read this post to learn about this sweet new feature with lots of potential for time-saving awesomeness.

The REST Discussion

I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the show. I’d like to see Brian give a presentation – with loads of examples, in particular from the Producer point of view – on designing and publishing REST-ful services. It’s easy to consume them… but how about architecting an application that produces the services? What strategies exist? What tools/frameworks? What big problems have you encountered? What if I want to do something more than just delete User 5? Instead I want to place an order for 13 copies of 5 different books and have them all mailed to my relatives in the 4 corners of the globe (OK, extreme, but you get the picture… simple scenarios = suck… I want more depth)?  What do you say, Brian?

Oh… and how do you unit test them? This is a blog with “unit” in its name, so I’d be remiss If I didn’t mention that.

What was Missing?

What was missing from the This Week in ColdFusion Podcast, Episode #4? Why… “this week in ColdFusion”, of course. I guess when I started listening, I was expecting more of a TWiT format, or perhaps at least more newscasty-ness to it. It is entitled, after all, “This week in…”. Consequently I expected more news items. I’d really like to have at least some time during the newscast devoted to keeping we CFMLers up to date on what’s happening in the community. News items, new projects, interesting blog posts, etc. Personally, I rely heavily on the Java Posse podcast to keep me up to date on all the things in the Java and Scala world that I don’t have time to investigate myself. Adding more news-i-ness into the TWiCF podcast would be a huge win for me.

Till Next Time…

Again, it’s encouraging to see another CF Podcast, especially one that appears to have a lot of promise. I hope Mike, Micky, and Brian can keep it up. I can only imagine how grueling it must be to produce a podcast, so kudos to all members of our community who devote their time to such endeavors.

I hope each episode is engaging enough to make me want to come home and write a review / response like this one.

Marc, out.

The recent 4th episode of This Week in ColdFusion inspired me to finally get the word out there regarding this sweet new feature of CFEclipse: Templates. This has been in CFEclipse since June, but we never advertised it or blogged about it. If you’re a java developer who uses Eclipse, you probably rely on templates so heavily that you’d think they were just baked right into the IDE. You know how when you’re editing java, and you type “for”, and it pops up a bunch of suggestions? That’s what this is.

Denny Valliant’s initial implementation only came with two default templates, though I suspect more will come down the road. It’s easy to write your own, though, and here’s how:

1. Window – Preferences – CFEclipse – Editor – Templates
2. In the Templates window, hit “Add New”
3. Type in a name, a description, and your templates. You can use “Variables” by using ${} syntax, and the contents in between the brackets can be any arbitrary name. Trust me, you’ll see how this works in a minute
4. If you want custom stuff – like where to put the cursor or some other “standard” variables, you can insert them with the dropdown list
5. Hit OK and get out of the preferences window. The window looks like this:

Now, in your editor, I created a new array, went down a line, and started typing the characters that begin with my new template name. For example, in my screenshot, I had a template named “looparray”, and so I started typing “loop”, and in my editor, that template appeared:

I hit “Enter” to accept the template, and now I’m in the template, and with each tab, I’ll move on to the next part of the template.

In this example, I have an array named “stogies”, so I tell my template that my array is named “stogies”, and it replaces my “template variable”. I want my index variable to be named “stogie”, so I type that in, and it replaces it in the cfloop tag AND in the block of code that followed.

This can save you a lot time right now, for free. This has the potential to be a huge timesaver, especially if developers write their own templates and share them with the community via the “export” functionality.  Hopefully, as the CFEclipse developers get more time, more templates will come bundled with CFEclipse.

Viva la TimeSavers!

{ "_id" :  ObjectId( "65c5b8782745e04afc2abf00"), 
  "AUTHOR" : "bill_1" , 
  "TAGS" : ["Comics","Games","Python","NoSQL","Ruby"] , 
  "PUB_DATE" : "Thu Oct 22 2009 07:42:19 GMT-0400 (EDT)" 
  "BODY" : "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet ..." , 
  "TS" : 1256177399955 , 
  "TITLE" : "Blog Title No.1 ..." 
}; 

//setup - no necessary for every search 
//create a mongo instance 
mongo = createObject('java', 'com.mongodb.Mongo').init( server_name , server_port ); 
//get a handle to the database 
db = mongo.getDb(db_name); 
//get or create a collection (e.g., Blog)   
collection = db.getCollection(collection_name); 

//build search criteria 
criteria = createObject('java', 'com.mongodb.BasicDBObject').init('TITLE','bill_1.*'); //regular expression 
//execute search 
results = collection.find(criteria); 

  results =  mongo.collection('blog').   //optionally set the collection to search, otherwise it will use current collection 
             startsWith('name','foo').   //string 
             endsWith('title','bar').    //string 
             exists('field','value').    //string 
             regex('field','value').     //string 
             before('field', 'value').   //date 
             after('field', 'value').    //date 
             $eq('field','value').       //numeric 
             $gt('field','value').       //numeric 
             $gte('field','value').      //numeric 
             $lte('field','value').      //numeric 
             $in('field','value').       //array 
             $nin('field','value').      //array 
             search('title,author,date', limit); 

Proposed:    search( keys=list_of_keys_to_return, limit=num, start=num, sort={field=direction} );

• When using $where, you must prefix the item you are seaching for with 'this', which corresponds to the current collection.
• MongoDB mentions that there is a greater perfomance demand for $where
  
• Searches are case sensitive. This may throw some folks, but it might help to think in terms of JavaScript, which is case sensitive.
• Case sensitivity applies to both keys and values. And note, too, that ColdFusion creates uppercase keys when creating structs, unless you create the struct using this syntax: my_struct["my_key"] = my_value;
• There is no built in boolean OR, yet, except in $where

• Database - Like in a relational model, this is a logical and physical storage area for data, which are Collections of Documents. A MongoDB server can have multiple databases. 
• Collection - Similar to a table, a Collection is a group of Documents. 
• Document - Similar to a row in a table, a Document represents an instance of some object in a Collection. In CFML, a Document object is a structure (or an array). A Document can contain other documents by either directly embedding them (see below) or by reference. 
• Indexes - Like a relational database index, this is a Document attribute registered with MongoDB for query performance and query optimization. 
• Queries and Cursors - Lastly, like a relational database, you query Collections. The query results are common programming data structures: Iterators or Arrays, but are referred to more generally as Cursors.

<cfscript> 
 person = {
  name = 'bill',
  profession = 'programmer',
  age = 'older than dirt'
 }

 mongo = createObject('java', 'com.mongodb.Mongo').init();

 db = mongo.getDb('my_db'); 
 collection = db.getCollection('people');
 doc = createObject('java', 'com.mongodb.BasicDBObject').init();
 doc.putAll(person);
 collection.insert(doc); //correction! thanks to marc e.
 criteria = createObject('java', 'com.mongodb.BasicDBObject').init('NAME','bill');
 query = collection.find(criteria);
 while(query.hasNext()){
  item = query.next();
  dump( item );
 }
</cfscript>

person = {
 name = 'bill',
 profession = 'programmer',
 age = 'older than dirt',
 address ={
   street = 'main st.',
   city = 'anytown',
   planet = {
     name = 'Earth',
     planetary_code = '0xFFB3540A'
   }
 }
}

select  p.*, a.*
 from Person p inner join Address a on p.id = a.pid
 where p.id = 'some_id'

person = db.people.find( {_id: some_id} ).limit(1);

I've been programming with ColdFusion and Java for a long time. Recently, I've started dabbling with Scala, and it's a language I'm starting to really like. One of the reasons I’ve taken to Scala is that in a number of ways it solves certain verbosity problems that ColdFusion solves as well. I decided to write this blog post after reading this article by Heiko Seeberger on named and default arguments in Scala 2.8. As I was reading, I thought, “Cool! Scala does something that CF has done for a long time”… something which has always irritated me about Java. And with ColdFusion 9, things get even better.

When we talk about verbosity, we’re talking about at least two things:

1. language constructs
2. language syntax

Sure there are others, but these two are what I want to discuss briefly right now. Let’s talk about constructs first.

Concision via Language Constructs

Argument Defaults

A traditional, pre-CF9 ColdFusion component (CFC) might look something like this:

<cfcomponent output="false">
      
  <cffunction name="init" output="false" access="public" returntype="Order">
          <cfargument name="id" type="numeric" required="true"/>
                <cfargument name="items" type="array" required="false" default="#ArrayNew(1)#"/>
            <cfargument name="ShippingMode" type="string" required="false" default="StandardShipping"/>
         <cfset structAppend(variables,arguments)>
           <cfreturn this>
     </cffunction>
       
</cfcomponent>

Here we see one required argument and two optional arguments. The optional arguments have default values. This means you could create an Order in at least these ways:

<cfset items = ["boat","car","flower"]>
<cfset order = createObject("component","Order").init(1)>
<cfset order2 = createObject("component","Order").init(1,items)>
<cfset order3 = createObject("component","Order").init(1,items,"FancyShipping")>

Now, if you were to do this in Java, you’d have even more lines of code to write in your Order class. Java does not have defaults for arguments, so you’d need to write 3 different constructors. Heiko illustrates this using Scala 2.7 syntax in his article, but it’d look roughly the same in java, only worse. Your constructor signatures would roughly be:

public class Order {
 public Order(int id){}
    public Order(int id,String[] items){}
     public Order(int id,String[] items, String shippingMode){}
}

Named Arguments

In the snippet above, I created the object by passing in 3 unnamed params. ColdFusion knows which arg is which based on position. But what if I wanted to create an order instance with the default argument for items, but “FancyShipping” for the ShippingMode? I.e. I want to pass params for arguments at positions 1 and 3, but not 2. Fortunately, ColdFusion makes this easy with named arguments:

<cfset order4 = createObject("component","Order").init(id=1,shippingMode="FancyShipping")>

In addition to making the code more readable, it affords you the ability to pick and choose which params you wish to pass, leaving the rest to the defaults.

Obviously, you can’t do this in Java, so you’d need to add a fourth constructor:

public class Order {
       ....    
  public Order(int id, String shippingMode){}
}

As Heiko points out, Scala 2.8 solves this Verbosity-by-lack-of-language-construct problem by providing named arguments and argument defaults. Ripped right from his post:

case class Order28(id: Long, items: List[Item] = Nil, mode: ShippingMode = StandardShipping)

And to create an order, you could do:

val order = Order28(1)

val order2 = Order28(1,item list goes here, OvernightShipping)

val order3 = Order28(1,mode=OvernightShipping)

Nice! As Sean Corfield pointed out, one difference between ColdFusion and Scala with respect to named arguments is that Scala allows you to mix named and unnamed arguments, as in the last example, whereas ColdFusion expects you to stick with one or the other.

Concision via Syntax

Looking at the Scala version (Please read Heiko’s full post to see it in all its beauty), we see how these two language constructs enhance concision when compared with Java. However, when you look at the ColdFusion code compared with the Scala code, you see that the Scala version is tighter and, in my opinion, simply nicer to look at. The primary reason is the difference in syntax between the two languages.

The ColdFusion version spends a lot of characters in tag names and attribute names. For instance:

<cfargument name="ShippingMode" type="string" required="false" default="StandardShipping"/>

Egads.

Prior to ColdFusion 9, you could’ve written this with a function in cfscript, but it didn’t afford you all the language constructs of the tag-based version. However, with ColdFusion 9, we get “full cfscript support”, which means tighter syntax. Check out the same CFC, but in full script:

component {
        public Order function init(required numeric id, array items = ArrayNew(1), String shippingMode="StandardShipping" ){
            StructAppend(variables,arguments);
                return this;
      }
}

Admittedly not as concise as Scala, but I don’t care… it’s a long way from the tag based version and is quite good enough for me. In addition, creating instances of this CFC gets nicer, too:

<cfscript>
 order = new Order(27);

      order2 = new Order(28, ["boat","car","flower"] ,"FancyShipping");

   order3 = new Order(id=29, shippingMode="Good Enough Shipping");
</cfscript>

Not bad, eh? A big hat tip to the ColdFusion team for giving us named arguments and argument defaults since waaaaay back. And another hat tip to them and the CFML Advisory committee for steering the language, syntactically, in a direction that aids in readability and makes coding more pleasurable.

The Problem

Wednesday: CFExecute is timing out, and I don’t know why

I get an IM from a coworker, Alan. One of the applications I wrote a while back isn’t working on our Dev server. Specifically, this application uses CFExecute to invoke Beyond Compare from the command line on Windows. The app would spin, and eventually, Alan would get a “Timeout period expired without completion of C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 2\bc2.exe”. Windows Task Manager was littered with BC2.exe processes

I fixed this with little troubles and sent out an email to the dev group with instructions for fixing it (explanation below).

Thursday: CFExecute is timing out – again, but on a different machine – and I don’t know why

The next day, after the app was running successfully again on the Dev server, Alan emails me. The app won’t run on his machine now, and it’s giving the same error message. Me, well… I get pissy. “C’mon, dude, I just sent an email telling how to fix it”. It was early, I was cranky, and the “angels of my better nature” weren’t in the mood. In short, I was an a-hole, assuming Alan was being lazy.

He wasn’t. He tried everything I had suggested as a fix. It still wasn’t working.

Sitting at his desk trying to figure it out, I was stumped. I rarely get this stumped. I *never* get stumped enough to email a company for help (in this case, Scooter, the makers of Beyond Compare). And there I was, writing an email to Scooter.

But you know how it is. You’re a geek. You like puzzles. You never give up. So… one more trip over to Alan’s desk. “Let’s try a few more things…”

This is a post about debugging. And it’s a post about assumptions.

What we did to debug

Wednesday night: The Easy Fix

To debug the hanging bc2.exe on the Dev server took about 10 minutes. After a few piddles around (selecting different options in the app, restarting CF – ruling out the really easy stuff) I simply ran the same thing that CFExecute was running at the command line. This is CFExecute Debugging 101. In my experience, this almost always yields the answer.  When I wrote the app, I had it write its entire cfexecute command to a log file, so it was a cut-n-paste job to run it from the command line.

When I did so, I saw the problem right away: the license had expired for Beyond Compare on the Dev server. Instead of running the command I had given it, Beyond Compare was throwing up a popup asking for a new serial number. All those BC2.exe processes in Task Manager were those popups, swallowed by CF, but never completing.  Fixing the license problem fixed the CFExecute problem.

Thursday: The not-so-easy Fix

Attempt #1

After confirming that the problem on Alan’s machine was not license-related, we tried a whole bunch of things, mostly centered around answering the question: “Why does it work on one machine and not the other? What are the differences between these two machines?”

We suspected a permissions issue from the start. The BC command was looking at different network locations, so the first thing we did was change the script to look only at directories on Alan’s machine… remove anything network related. No Dice.

We always run CF under a special account (we’ll call it “cfservice”), and we thought “maybe the account got borked”. We weren’t taking that for granted as it’s happened before. So we tried running CF under the local system account. Nada.

We added additional logging into the BC command to get more info… it wouldn’t write the logs. But it would write the logs if we ran the command directly on CMD. WTF?

We went into Beyond Compare’s options and fiddled with a few important-sounding checkboxes. Still nothing.

So we’re at a point where, when running the command from CMD, it worked fine. But when run from within CFExecute, it was hanging.

What’s the difference between ColdFusion running it, and us running it from CMD? We were stumped.

At this point, we were certain that for some reason, Beyond Compare was throwing up a popup when run from within CF, but we couldn’t “see” that popup because, obviously, CF was swallowing it. We tried hooking a debugger up to the BC2.exe process, but we got nowhere fast.

Aside: while all this is happening, another coworker is talking about some other thing, “this app (unrelated) worked a few days ago. Now it’s busted. What’s going on?”. This was an app I had fiddled with “a few days ago”. I knew exactly what the problem was. But I didn’t step in yet. When you’re debugging, you stay focused. You ignore other problems even if you know the answer because when you’re debugging, you stay in the zone. There are times when you break from the problem and let your subconscious chew. For me, those times are toward the end of the day, when I’m spent, and I can let my mind wrestle with it on my commute home. But this was 10:00 AM. This, for me, is prime focus time, and a big no-no for me is pulling off of a problem during my peak mental energy.  When you commit, you commit, even if it means leaving someone else hanging for a little bit. Good teams understand this, and God willing you’re patient with each other and recognize when your coworkers need to focus. It’s a high form of respect among geeks. If you see one of your colleagues in the zone, and they sort of mindlessly blow you off, it’s not necessarily an affront. Maybe it’s that they’re running at full pace and stopping would put them at the back of the proverbial pack. Be patient. Do not assume the worst.

Attempt #2

I was about to give up, so I went back to my desk to do a little research. I drafted an email to Scooter. I held off, then went back to Alan’s desk.

Alan was still pretty sure it was permissions related, and at this point I was up for anything. But we had tried that route already. We ran it under cfservice. We ran it under local system. What else could it be? What’s the *delta* among running it from cfservice, running it from local system, and running it from CMD logged into the machine normally (under Alan’s account)?

OK, let’s try this: let’s take a cue from Michael Jordan. “You gotta be the ball”. So, let’s “Be ColdFusion”.

We logged out, logged back into his machine under our cfservice account (which, remember, CF runs under on our machines), and attempted to run the app from the command line. Bam. Popup… The damn license popup. How? What? Huh?

It turns out that Beyond Compare stores a license for each user on the machine, which we confirmed by poking through the registry. It explained why it would work when we ran it from CMD when logged in normally, and it explained why cfservice was hanging BC2.exe. We logged back in under Alan’s account, then did a shift-run as – cfservice on Beyond Compare, and sure enough we got the popup.

To fix, we simply entered the license for the application while running it from the same account as ColdFusion, which cured our ills.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense. While you’re debugging, it never makes sense. This is learning, and it’s why I go to work every day.

Takeaways

• If your application appears to hang, try running it on the command line first, outside of CF, and see if you get any popups
• If your application appears to hang, and it works from the command line when you run it, try running it from the same user account as CF is running  under
• Your coworkers can sometimes *appear* to be helpless, or at least appear to not be taking the initiative you wish they would take. Before you assume that’s the case, try instead to assume the best. Assume they tried; assume they tried hard. When you think you’re not getting the best out of people, ask yourself: Are you giving them your best, too? Not your best tech. Your best you.

--marc