ColdFusion is cross-platform, and integrates well with both COM on Windows and Java on any supported operating system. It has strong development tools, including ColdFusion Studio and Dreamweaver Ultradev, and following its acquisition by Macromedia these are likely to get better still.

The authors kick off with a Getting Started section, which explains installation, basic features and key tools such as the Application Manager and ColdFusion Studio. There is also a thorough explanation of CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language), the core tagging system. A section on database essentials covers a wide variety of database servers. The third section has chapters on state management, templates, error handling, scripting and drawing charts. XML and Web services gets a section of its own, followed by coverage of ColdFusion extensions using COM, Corba, Java and custom tags. The later parts of the book go into the detail of administration, such as scheduling tasks, logs and archives, clustering and load balancing, security, troubleshooting and optimisation. There is a brief case-study based on an auction site.

Packed with tips and example code, this is an excellent ColdFusion resource. It is disappointing to find nothing on Dreamweaver Ultradev, whereas the general material here on Cascading Stylesheets and Dynamic HTML can easily be found elsewhere. On the plus side, the chapters on administration are particularly valuable, and the authors do a good job of explaining ColdFusion from the ground up... but at a professional level. --Tim Anderson