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Rating: 
Summary: Good coverage of building content management sites
Review: I was expecting a lot of insights when I saw the new book by Macromedia Spectra evangelist Ben Elmore and with "Dynamic Publishing" I wasn't disappointed. The book covers all stages of developing a dynamic content management system - from planning it out with the users, to designing how to store the data, to the presentation layer. The book uses such modern architecting techniques as Model-Viewer-Controller (MVC) and UML. In fact one of its weaknesses is that it can get a bit heavy reading with all those acronyms floating around! However if you are serious about software development in general and content management systems in particular, then I can recommend getting this book. It also covers most of the new features in ColdFusion MX such as CFCs, XML, Java, Flash Remoting and security. Advanced topics include localization of content to different countries, practical workflow, versioning of content and how to deploy successfully. The authors convey a good understanding of the subject matter and the book is full of tips that can only be learnt on the job. This probably reflects on the fact that most of the authors are well known ColdFusion consultants. My only negatives on the book are that as mentioned above it is heavy reading on the English side with a lot of passive voice and long sentences -- it reads like a corporate white paper in places. In fact chapter 2 is acknowledged to be lifted from a Macromedia white paper! That chapter is a little too much marketing hype in my opinion. The other 22 chapters are much better however, and more technical in natural. The book is mainly aimed at the analyst or project manager - while there is some code samples in the book there are many more discussions of why you would want to code in a particular way. Junior programmers who want to stretch themselves could benefit from the book too, so long as they are prepared for some extensive learning. As far as I could tell there is not a CD-ROM or website with more code on it. This is a good thing in my opinion as too many books these days are simply code dumps with some text thrown in - I can always get the syntax from the ColdFusion manual. All in all it is a worthy addition to your programming library.
Rating: 
Summary: a book with a place...
Review: reading this book i realized that it wasn't what i had been expecting. every book i've read on coldfusion has started with the assumption that people are starting from scratch. this book doesn't really teach you coldfusion, it endeavors to show you how to USE coldfusion in an effective way. now, that said, the book was a little dry to read. then again, it's a book more about programming theory than anything else. this book is NOT for beginners and might actually be more suited to someone who finds themselves in a project lead position for the first time. the information is good but before you buy it make sure you know that this is the sort of book you need. in the right hands this will be very useful...
Rating:
Summary: a book with a place...
Review: reading this book i realized that it wasn't what i had been expecting. every book i've read on coldfusion has started with the assumption that people are starting from scratch. this book doesn't really teach you coldfusion, it endeavors to show you how to USE coldfusion in an effective way. now, that said, the book was a little dry to read. then again, it's a book more about programming theory than anything else. this book is NOT for beginners and might actually be more suited to someone who finds themselves in a project lead position for the first time. the information is good but before you buy it make sure you know that this is the sort of book you need. in the right hands this will be very useful...
Rating:
Summary: Good Book, but not for the newbie.
Review: This book does a great job of explaining information architecture, but it is not for anyone new to dynamic web development. It makes several assumptions as to the reader's knowledge level on topics such as CodlFusion, XML, UML, etc. If you have a solid working knowledge of these areas and just want to learn n-tier, MVC architecture, then this book is for you. The book is broken down nicely into "sections" based on your role in the overall scheme of the project. It really is a "something for everyone" type book, but its terminology, phrasing, and presentation is geared for the advanced level.
Rating:
Summary: The best CF architecture book I've seen
Review: While ColdFusion developers come from a wide background, it seems like most of the ColdFusion books out there are targeted to the designer-developer crowd. There seem to be a lot of "learn CF in 10 days" books, but little available for someone who really wants to learn how to architect. This book changes all that. While this book discusses some of the new functionality of ColdFusion MX, it really shines as an introduction to web application architecture. The book takes the approach of creating software according to the N-tier model and shows examples of modeling the application through UML. From there, the authors show how to create various aspects of the application in ColdFusion MX. In addition to showing the integration of CFMX and Flash, the authors also show integration with web services and EJBs. I think any developer worth his/her salary, should know the architecture material that is so well covered in this book.
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