If horse-choking is your thing, then this book is for you. Well, it may also be for you if you're looking for a definitive resource on ColdFusion MX web application construction, but, honestly, this book could choke a horse.

Published by Macromedia press back before Adobe bought out Macromedia, this book is THE BOOK when it comes to ColdFusion MX, especially since it's published by the source. Now, don't get me wrong, the source doesn't always publish the best definitive guides. I know several poorly documented tools for which I've had to cobble together a cheat tome, so there's nothing really sacrosanct about it being published by Macromedia. What makes it sacrosanct is that it abides by Jacob's First Law of Interesting Computer Books: If a computer book is to be interesting, it must be (a) informative, and (b) entertaining. This book fits that bill nicely.

Included with the book is a trial of ColdFusion MX, which can run client-side indefinitely, but only run server side for a limited time. Likewise, a trial of DreamWeaver and the examples from the book are included. The book is chock full of exercises, following an amusing film-based theme for most of them. There are so many hidden jokes in the examples provided in the book, I'm not even sure I got them all. But those jokes don't in any way deviate from the important, informative content of the book, so if you're a boring person, you can just skip or otherwise ignore statements meant to be both informative and entertaining (just seeing the informative part).

If you want to start learning ColdFusion, this is definitely a place to start. Keep a look out for the latest and greatest version of this book, though, as with Jacob's Second Law of Interesting Computer Books, as time approaches infinity, computer books that are not meant to be entertaining become so, and computer books that are meant to be entertaining become annoying. So get the latest and greatest, so you can have the best mix of information and entertainment. ( )