There is no point of adding anything else but saying that all you need to know about CF you can find in this book. About previous reviews, I would say that people who mentioned that there are 5 chapters missing are complete IDIOTS since on each chapter page (that is missing) there is a note on the end of that page saying: "The entire text of this chapter can be found on the included CD"... haha I guess they didn't read that part ;)

This book is exactly what I needed. After a couple of weeks of stumbling through ColdFusion applying only my background in other programming languages and the Macromedia-supplied reference books, this book has provided me with a real understanding of ColdFusion design principles necessary for effective programming. It's best read chapter-by-chapter, better as a guide to planning and making decisions about development than as a comprehensive reference. For example, the chapter on Development Methodologies provides an overview of Fusebox, but then discusses the pros and cons of this and alternative methodologies. The chapter on Data Validation describes client-side validation, server-side validation, and then explains that good design may entail a combination of both.

If you're a book learner, and prefer a self-paced book to an overpriced class, this is a great book, very readable. This in combination with the reference guides packaged with ColdFusion should get you where you need to go.

This book is a great learning tool and resource once you have mastered CF. 5 of the more advanced chapters are available via the CD ROM or a zip file from Forta's web site - which is okay, but I think the chapter on cffile and cfdirectory should have been included in print. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn CF. It meets almost all of your *advanced* needs as well, and for those it doesn't the companion volume Advanced Cold Fusion Application Development does.
A great buy if you are looking to learn CF or if you are looking for a CF reference.

I recently bought this book and it is missing complete chapters.
24 - Enhancing Forms with Client-Side Java
30 - Working with Stored Procedures
32 - Generating Non-HTML Content
33 - Interacting with the Operating System
35 - Event Scheduling

Each of these chapters are listed in the table of contents with a heading only and when you turn to the page listed, there is a cover page and that is it. There are no pages missing in the numbering which leads me to believe they were all printed this way. Between missing pages and typos throughout, it looks like they decided to skimp on the editing process. Quantity does not equal Quality. Had I noticed how sloppily this book had been put together, I wouldn't have wasted the money.

This book is full of information. Unfortunatly you can't find any of it quickly. The index is shabby, the layout of the book is designed to read easy but it lacks as a reference utility. Personally I like the oreilly style. Give the tech details, give an example go on. Forta's style is give a glimpse at whats going on, give an example. Give a little bit more of glimpse, give an example. It's quite frustrating for speed learners. I give this book 3 stars, if you have time to sift through endless bs then pick it up. If you're looking for a good book to learn cold fusion fast than go else where.

Ben Forta was the reference in the good old days. But then he started to have the same book contents under different titles (as some smart reviewers here also noticed), to enlist several different people to co-author his books and to be away from software development itself. Not surprisingly he has now many books published. Unfortunately quantity and quality do not come often together.

His books are no longer the reference. Many better ones are available now. Smart readers will see that Ben Forta has somehow hit a wall. This one book is a particular example of a book that will keep readers far away from the powerful and much faster roads to productive and excellent CF development that some other books just simply have. Beginners readers may take longer to realize that. Until after they discover how much time and money they have lost.

I am teaching myself how to use Coldfusion from scratch, and this book has been very helpful.

Last year I bought Macromedia Coldfusion 5 appliction Development for Ben Forta. I did like the book and I learned a lot from it. So with my order of Coldfusion MX software, I decided to order Coldfsuion MX Application Develpment for Ben Forta. I start reading and soon I am in the end of the book do you know why? because it is almust same as the first one. Even same example. There is chapters where is same on both edition word by word. Yes, there is few things new on coldfuion MX but not worth it.

My advice, if you have a book wrote by Ben Forta for Coldfusion 5 then don't buy the new one because you are buying same book but different cover. If it's your first time, then this book will be the one to start.

by the way, this is not only the mistake I did, I did buy Coldfusion MX Web Application Construction Kit, and Coldfusion MX Developer Study Guide. They are all same. in fact I did read same paragraph again, and again from different edition of Ben Forta.

I will say Ben Forta did it again and I did buy and waste my Money this time.

I have about 5 books on CFMX and this is the only one I use anymore. It seems to be a book that is either loved or hated with no room in between. I loved it and in the past I have not liked Forta's books.

I learn best by getting the big picture and seeing how the pieces fit rather than learning about the pieces and then building the big picture. This book allowed me to see the bigger picture and how the pieces fit in it.

Another reviewer complained about the explanation of the cflogin function. This was the very reason I loved the book. I looked at the code and glanced through the text for any needed explanations and the confusion I had was cleared up in a matter of minutes. An hour later the administrative site I was working on had much cleaner code and it was working properly.

Not every tag is covered in detail but most of what is covered in the body of the book was easy for me to understand. If you learn like me I highly reccomend it.

I have just started this book but am already very impressed with how much I have learned. Coldfusion makes it very straightforward to create dynamically generated pages. This book provides step by step instructions along with examples which you can use in real-world applications. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in ColdFusion programming. Start here!

I had high hopes for this book, and it has let me down. This book is absolutely huge (~1500 pages), and it does not contain the level of detail that I was expecting.

Here's an example: I wanted to know what the valid returntypes of CFFUNCTION tags are (returntype is an attribute of the tag). Pretty reasonable, no? There is a chapter specifically designated to user-defined functions (i.e. the cffunction tag). That chapter tells me to refer to the appendix for information on the cffunction tag attributes. So, I look in the appendix, and the description of the RETURNTYPE attribute is: "Optional; name of data type that will be returned."

Well, DUH! I wanted to know what the valid return types are (e.g. integer, boolean, string, etc.), not the definition of what a return type is! This is the kind of basic information that I would expect to find in this book, as it is essential to programming in CF MX. However, it was astoundingly omitted, leaving me to scour the Internet for the information that I thought I had purchased with this book.

This is just one example, but it's a common theme throughout the book (CFLOGIN is another area where not nearly enough detail was presented, even though it's brand new in CF MX). The IsUserInRole function is a perfect example. What is this new concept of a "role"? How are roles set, so CF can know if a user is in a role that I'm checking against? I wanted some basic explanations of the intricacies of how this all works. However, none of this is covered, and I had to figure it out myself. They just give a simple definition and a vanilla example, and I have to figure out how the function works through my own trial-and-error, defeating the whole purpose of the book. The vast majority of topics that I tried to lookup in this book ended up with the same general outcome as I describe above.

I think that a big part of the problem is that this book has numerous authors, and it does not appear that they collaborated nearly enough. There is a great deal of redundant information, and the index is absolutely horrible. I would recommend to anyone who already knows the basics of web programming to instead use the documentation provided by Macromedia (developing apps in CF MX and CFML Language Reference). I've found those books to be many times more helpful than the Forta books.

Also disappointing is the Advanced book does not elaborate any further on these issues- it just covers different material which it deems to be "advanced".

Overall, I'm very disappointed with this book, but I'm not sure there is anything better (yet). Hopefully the book from O'Reilly will be better- I will certainly be checking it out. It's just not available yet as of the time I'm writing this review.

I am a self taught web designer and as such I demand books that teach me the how, why, in and out of cutting edge technologies.
I knew that I needed to build dynamic websites with speed, flexablity and ease in order to stay competitive in todays tech market. I did not know where to start until I found this book.
This book solidified what I knew and taught me what I did not know about the very basic things advanced users take for granted. There is no greater person to learn from than Ben Forta. He explains things very well and makes it fun to learn CFML coding. Yes, I will agree that this book is not for the advanced user, but that is why they have published an advanced book. I am writing this review for the average designer or html coder who wants to learn how to make their websites come to life with dynamic and rich content. Don't be scared to take a chance on learning a new technology. ColdFusion is light years ahead of ASP and PHP so you will be pleased at how much easier it is to use. In closing: THIS IS THE BOOK TO BUY! Thank you to Ben Forta to writing such a great book and thank to Allaire & Macromedia for making the best web products in the world!

I bought this book based on the comments by previous reviewers. And though it might serve as a reference for me in the future, I was rather disappointed.

Perhaps my expectations were also shaped by programming books I have used and loved in the past, but I thought this one was way to verbose - straying FAR off topic (for example: the "real" definition of the internet, basic Dreamweaver MX - which felt way too much like a proprietary plug for Macromedia), and taking much more space than necessary to explain and demonstrate ColdFusion tags.

In short, I found this book too little for too much: too little information for the price and difficulty of finding it. In this case, less would definitely have been more.

For the beginning web developer, this might be a great book, but if you've already got a reasonably good handle on web app development, then I will have to disagree with a previous reviewer and say that perhaps another book would be a better use of your time and money.

I am relatively new to the world of ColdFusion. In my research before purchasing a ColdFusion book I was overwhelmed at how many people recommended this book to start with. While it's size may be a tad bit scary at first, you quickly find yourself immersed in an engaging and even entertaining read.

The book doesn't drive readers away with computer lingo that only the nerdiest of the nerds can understand, but rather uses common day to day phrases that even newcomers to the web development arena can understand. It has excellent real world examples given for almost all the instructions presented. It tells you how to do it, but also tells you why you should do it a certain way as opposed to another way.

I also appreciated that Ben didn't get technical for the sake of being technical. I have read many computer books where you feel the author is just trying to impress people with his knowledge. Ben presents the material in more of a flavor of someone that is truly interested in seeing you progress in knowledge and be successful in your endeavors to learn ColdFusion.

I also appreciated the coverage of SQL in the book. I had very little knowledge of SQL before I started reading it. I was surprised by a couple of the reviewers wishing the SQL had been left out. I feel this would have been a tremendous mistake. Having a basic fundamental knowledge of SQL is only going to help a CF developer write quality apps. The book does not get bogged down in SQL, it just presents the basics and gives examples of how to do the most common things in SQL. I feel it was a necessary couple of chapters that made things more clear later on down the line.

I also just recently purchased the Advanced version of this book and am looking forward to reading it. I highly recommend this book for ColdFusion beginners and for those that dabble in CF from time to time.

If your already proficient with CF, you probably will want to go with his advanced book.

No complaints from this reader whatsoever. For those that don't know, I'll add this... this book is the best selling ColdFusion book of all time. That says something about its quality.

Even if you don't want to learn Cold Fusion you cannot avoid it. I prefer reading that book at the bed instead of a novel.

I read many ColdFusion books from different author. Ben's book is the best..!!! especially, when there is Nate Weiss as the co-author. The content is clearly presented.
One more thing..., I agreed with the other reviewer said there is no or very little XML section in the book. Ben should cover XML because XML is the main feature of ColdFusion MX. - LT

XML--One of the most important aspects of ColdFusion MX is barely mentioned. What a book of ColdFusion MX! I will never buy anything from these so-called authors.

The book is quite easy to read and very easy to follow the examples. You'll find that in a very short time you can develop applications that are useful and the satisfaction from that is immense. I used to work at an e-commerce organisation that used this product and I really despised it, until I read this book and got to "know" a little more about Cold Fusion. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in developing an application, in quick time.

Ben is good, well very good but this is just an update from all the other CF books he has written. There are others, go to book stores and read the book before ordering this way you can have all the information right up front and not have to second guess, from someone else's opinions who may be totally NEW-BE to CF and not know that much. Do NOT base your purchase on the opinions here, why, cause half the authors right the opinions, or some pinhead who doesnt know jack about the product.

I have to say this is one KILLER BOOK! What makes this book so great is that you could pick this book up having no prior experience in web anything and finish with a solid foundation in Coldfusion MX and how the Web, Internet and SQL work. I will agree most of us have web experience so some of the beginning material is a bit elementary, but for me being all self taught, it reaffirmed my knowledge in the basics and gave me confidence in what I am doing. I think anyone with the patience and desire to learn can become a coldfusion guru and THIS BOOK HELPS YOU attain that goal.

I am an absolute beginner in the world of programing. This book is proving to be a great aid in my endeavors to learn CF. I find Mr. Forta's explanations very easy to understand. Our school's webpage needs some major renovation. Through ColdFusion we are hoping to spread the maintenance duties around instead of waiting for the IT to find time to update the site. I believe that our students will be able to learn CF just reading this book and working projects during class. However, be careful. My book is missing Chapter 30 "Working With Stored Procedures". I hope that doesn't happen to you.

I am a Flash Designer with a moderate amount of ASP experience. I bought 3 CF books to begin my ColdFusion quest. This one *BY FAR* was the best written, easiest to understand, and most comprehensive!

With 1100 pages of learning and 400 pages of reference, this one is already tattered, highlighted, and dog-eared more than any book in my library.

I have to disagree with the other reviewer stating that some content should have been left to other books like basic SQL, etc... this information is invaluable if you are like me and are treading into new territory with CF.

With the code examples clearly displayed and explained, you don't need to sit in front of your computer while reading this book. You walk away understanding it without the need to load the accompanying files.

From someone who has read over 30 computer-based books in the last 18 months, I highly recommend this book to anyone that needs/wants a fast start into the world of ColdFusion MX.

This is a solid book although much of the coverage seemed to be overlay basic and introductory. I am new to ColdFusion but not to web development and would have appreciated a more focused coverage of ColdFusion with out the tangential coverage of topics that could have been left to other books such as basic SQL book.

I've read about a third of the book, and once again I'm pleased with Forta's work. This is an ideal book for beginners, but much of the material is too rudimentary for experienced ColdFusion programmers. I probably would have bought the O'Reilly (that's what I chose for my CF5 book), but it's not available yet. I'm a little bummed out that I have to buy another book (the Forta Advanced) to get the whole picture on MX.

This is the one Cold Fusion book you MUST buy. Great for beginners! Lots of helpful examples and tips about using Cold Fusion in the real world. For those who have the older version of this book, it is now better organized and even more comprehensive. One small complaint is the decision to publish several key chapters in electronic format only. Overall, though, this book is a must-have for ColdFusionMX developers.

This is the third edition of the "Web Construction Kit" I have purchased (I also have copies covering CF3.0 and CF4.5). The way Ben (and Nate) lay out real-world examples helps visualize the concepts. Many of the examples in the book not only show you how to use a particular tag, but also give additional notes to enhance performance.

I am particularly impressed with the attention they give to the application.cfm file. The previous versions of this book never seemed to fully explain the many uses for the file.

So far the chapters on session scope and security have been a great help, but I am also looking forward to delving into the charts chapter.

I have yet to fully read this book, but I am impressed with the fact that almost 300 pages is devoted to using "Client-side" Java within CFMX.

For anyone wanting to learn CFMX I suggest getting this book. I also own "Inside Coldfusion MX" and Que's "ColdFusion MX Development" and while I like both books, they lack the depth in which Ben goes into with his book.

I'm new to Cold Fusion...have only used ASP...and started creating a practice CF site using Macromedia's documentation which I found somewhat helpful but not entirely what I needed. Since this book wasn't immediately available, I purchased another CFMX book and was greatly disappointed...lots of theory and little practical application. Not so with Ben Forta's book. Within a half hour I was creating the Security Login page I was looking for and it worked perfectly the first time! This book is easy to read, understand and possibly the most useful book of its type I have ever used! I highly recommend it!