Emails and going through things. Wayne joined the meeting and we chatted about the cfinvoke tag (code inside of ColdFusion that calls a method or a function in a library of code). We also got into how if it (the cf invoke tag) is used in a loop it uses a lot of system resources and memory. Basically, it has to copy the whole CFC (coldfusion component or class) every time that it is used. If it used in a loop, it won't be able to cache it and it rebuilds it every time, however many time it loops. Anyways, we have a number of these spread throughout the system. Wayne was saying that we could speed things up if we made some changes and used the Application.cfc to setup the initial component or classes and then refer to that in our loops vs building it every time on the fly.

We went over some samples and he showed me what it could look like. He is going to start making some changes and we'll go from there. Eventually, we'll need to cascade new code all around the system. One little step at a time. As a side note, our whole conversation this morning was having a "progression over time" type feeling. Basically, we start out with something, then it grows, then we modify it to make it better and faster. All part of the process.

Next, we got into some other talks about memory management and efficiency of certain tasks and procedures. Wayne was talking about some new try's, catches, default error throwing, and some new flow. Part of Wayne's desire to make these changes deals with automated testing. If we change things, it makes it better for automated testing. Currently, a couple of the things that stop the automated testing is hard aborts and page includes. If we can get rid of those and just use catches and throws, it becomes better for testing.

The goal is continuing to tighten things up and refine things and processes. Wayne is playing with some global trim functions and how best to push those pieces through our code. Right now, we trim everything that a user may interact with (URL and FORM scope variables). Basically, Wayne is "salting" little pieces of experimental code throughout the system, trying to help speed things up.