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Rating: 
Summary: A Great Start to Learning ColdFusion
Review: I bought this book to add to my collection of Cold Fusion material (Ben Forta books, Mastering Cold Fusion etc.) but I was most disappointed. The author hardly touches upon any real principles and the examples are shown as miniature screenshots which you need a magnifying glass to read! Why not use the standard "fixed width font" code listings everyone else does.This major failing of the book makes it hard to gain anything from it and I sent it back for a refund. Buy Mastering Cold Fusion 4.5 by Arman Danesh instead : he's vastly improved on the earlier version and corrected most of the negative areas commented on by reviewers of that book to deliver a superb reference work which demonstrates real-world CF examples that you can learn from. The only people who MIGHT benefit from this book are: a) people with Bionic vision or b) people who want a vague overview of Cold Fusion's capability. A much better Beginner level book is Cold Fusion 4 for Dummies.
Rating: 
Summary: Good if you want to know how-to and not why
Review: I thought that this book cuts through a lot of the formalities and gets down to what you want to do. This book allows someone with little to no experience with ColdFusion a chance to get your hands dirty right away. My only criticism of this book is that it could be a little more detailed on why somethings work the way they do. However, if you want to get started coding solid ColdFusion programs, and develop your general knowledge of the basics of ColdFusion, this book is great. On the other hand if you want more indepth explaination, buy one of those 800+ paged books written by Ben Forta, or one of the others.
Rating:
Summary: Good if you want to know how-to and not why
Review: I thought that this book cuts through a lot of the formalities and gets down to what you want to do. This book allows someone with little to no experience with ColdFusion a chance to get your hands dirty right away. My only criticism of this book is that it could be a little more detailed on why somethings work the way they do. However, if you want to get started coding solid ColdFusion programs, and develop your general knowledge of the basics of ColdFusion, this book is great. On the other hand if you want more indepth explaination, buy one of those 800+ paged books written by Ben Forta, or one of the others.
Rating:
Summary: A great "Quick Start" to ColdFusion
Review: Obviously this book does not carry the same weight as the 800-1000 page Forta and Danesh books, but T.C. Bradley does an excellent job of covering the basics. The book is more of a "how-to" than a ColdFusion language reference. There are screenshots throughout the book, and the information is well organized and flows well from chapter to chapter. Full of "real world" examples, I would recommend the book to novice and intermediate level CF developers.
Rating:
Summary: decent coverage but not necesarily appropriate for beginners
Review: This book published by PrimaTech has decent coverage of some of the general and more popular features of ColdFusion such as declaring variables, Querying a database, File Uploading, Modifying Dynamic Date, Email triggers and many other useful features. In general, this book serves as a good reference to these ColdFusion functions, presented in a quick and easy manner, although this book does not serve as a good introduction to ColdFusion. The concepts taught are sort of scattered throughout the book and there appears to be no consistency in the order of topics covered throughout the Chapters. There is no real coverage of ColdFusion syntax, which is something essential to a beginner of any language. Although, general syntax that is required to complete tutorials throughout the book is given, it is not presented in a fashion that a beginner can truly grasp and follow. But those with a background in some web programming language will be able to pick up the concept that was intended to be taught. I should still note that a beginner will still be able to complete the tutorials throughout the book. But the order of the topics and the manner in which they are presented and discussed does not appear to be the best methodology for the absolute ColdFusion beginner. Although I still recommend this book to any web programmer who is interested in ColdFusion, if you are looking for a book to introduce you to ColdFusion, its syntax, etc., this may not be the book to buy. It may be more appropriate if you are looking for a quick reference to some of the most used ColdFusion features mentioned earlier.
Rating:
Summary: Fast & Easy, Down & Dirty
Review: This is a great book for an experienced web developer who needs to jump right in and get learning. If you already have a background in development, this book will help you transition quickly into Coldfusion. Anyone without experience will likely be lost, but that is why it is labeled at the Intermediate level. This book will help you greatly if you have a quick learning curve. You will definitely need to get something more in-depth and something that you can use as a handy reference when you get over that initial learning curve, this book is neither.
Rating:
Summary: Fast & Easy, Down & Dirty
Review: This is a great book for an experienced web developer who needs to jump right in and get learning. If you already have a background in development, this book will help you transition quickly into Coldfusion. Anyone without experience will likely be lost, but that is why it is labeled at the Intermediate level. This book will help you greatly if you have a quick learning curve. You will definitely need to get something more in-depth and something that you can use as a handy reference when you get over that initial learning curve, this book is neither.
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