Rating: 
Summary: Great for learning, but don't expect it to be a reference
Review: When I first learned CF, around 8 mo. ago, the first book I had on my hands was this one. I have to be honest, it was a great kickoff for me. That was my all and only resource at that time and worked like a charm to me. That sure put me on the right path to CF.Eight months later I found it not no useful, since the info is very beginner-driven. Sometimes I need a good reference and try to look for it in this book and see that it falls short. I haven't read the advanced CF book, but my opinion is that this book wasn't intended to be a reference at all. So, don't read it expecting it to behavesin such way because you're rating will be less than 3 stars. Resuming, taking into consideration the type of book it is, I think is a great book for newbies explained in the friendliest language I've ever seen. Ben Forta is a great person and author and He will even answer your emails.
Rating:
Summary: VERY GOOD but NOT the BE-ALL, END-ALL
Review: It is unclear who this book was written for. Early chapters target those who know very little about the web. Middle chapters however, require a basic knowledge of HTML and SQL. Finally, later chapters present more code listings with fewer explanations of the code. Overall, Forta gives great insight into the capabilities of CF and does a very good job demonstrating the logic and coding techniques behind data-driven web pages. However insuffiecient attention is paid to the nuts and bolts syntax of the CFML language. Furthermore, the MULTITUDES of typos and incorrect references to figures, listings, and chapters can be EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. At times it seems the editor was asleep at the wheel. There are precious few real-life, task-oriented examples in this book, for example a "How to Create a Login Application" would have been nice. The E-commerce chapter leaves much to be desired in terms of explanations and seems to have been written for one who already understands CFML code at a fairly high level. It consists entirely of CF custom tags (Which are not addressed in this book!) You have to spend another $50 on Forta's Advanced CF book for the chapter on custom tags. This book is a must-have for anyone considering developing in CF but not for the casual web page designer. Furthermore, it is not the CF Bible it is purported to be. Prepare to buy Forta's Advanced CF book as well as Danesh's "Mastering ColdFusion 4.5" if you want the whole story.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference in use by my office
Review: Working for a major telecommunications company, my coworkers and I have found this work to be a valuable asset to our projects. We continue to be amazed at the capabilites of Cold Fusion alone, and Forta's work gives us the kick start we needed to write some excellent programs. The information is paced for the intermediate user. Not exactly for beginners or non-programmers.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for beginners
Review: The Coldfusion 4.0 Web Application Construction Kit is excellent for ColdFusion newbies because it covers necessary info that beginners may not know such as creating your first database and making an ODBC connection on the server. As a CF newbie myself I found these sections extremely helpful. I've used the examples from this book in two of my ColdFusion projects for my job, so I can tell you first hand that the lessons are *very* applicable for the real world. The book doesn't cover all of ColdFusion's capabilites, but it covers enough to let a beginner write relavent applications and actually understand what they're doing.
Rating:
Summary: The best ColdFusion Reference out there...
Review: ...but that's not to say it's perfect. There's a couple of things that I definitely found wanting: * Forta fails to mention that in order to pass a variable from one page to another, you have to declare that variable name on the page to which you're passing * E-commerce should be its own book; I don't see much point in addressing it in the space of this one. * I think he should have included an appendix with a list of useful/helpful websites (ANYONE LOOKING FOR SOME, EMAIL ME AND I'LL SEND YOU A LIST) * That same appendix should have included how to find the nearest ColdFusion user's group (http://devex.allaire.com/developer/usergroups/). Having said that, I think Forta covers functions pretty well, and does a good job of explaining MOST of the major tags. So I still think this is better than "ColdFusion for Dummies" or Danesh and Motlagh's book, "Mastering ColdFusion 4.5." I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn ColdFusion; if you're considering it, though, I would say it is WELL worth your while to learn HTML and SQL first.
Rating:
Summary: Good - But Lacks Thoroughness
Review: Although Forta's book is perhaps the best ColdFusion book that exists today (including those new 4.5 books), he fails to address some key issues that exist as part of Cold Fusion's syntax as well as some basic elements of web design. The book methodically teaches readers the concept of database driven sites and how to create them. The general ideas are conveyed effectively, although there is a great deal of fluff for someone who already knows basic HTML. There are some problems in how thorough he is in explaining the syntax of ColdFusion. He may have mentioned on one or two occasions when exactly to use pound signs or quotation marks, but every reader of this book that I have met never seems to know what the exact syntax of ColdFusion should be. He needs to address these issues mainly concerned with cfif's and cfoutputs. He also fails to deliver any tips on web design or how to build a "good" website. This is primarily a book on how to use ColdFusion to build web applications, but the lack of advice would lead to extremely bad web design by novice users. Overall a good book to learn ColdFusion. Could be more thorough and should include a section on web design.
Rating:
Summary: Great Reference!
Review: This book was worth it's price within the first 5 minutes I had it. It really does a great job with ColdFusion and how to implement it. This book is worth it's weight it gold
Rating:
Summary: Good book for all types of programmers
Review: I started this book as a complete novice in Cold Fusion but an experienced programmer with ASP and PHP. Not only was this book incredibly helpful to get me started with Cold Fusion but I imagine it would be just as helpful to a beginner in all types of programming. One deficiency in the book, however, is that it lacks discussion of Cold Fusion custom tags because you must buy Forta's other more advanced book for that. I think that a primer on custom tags would have been more helpful than the chapter on version control or even LDAP support. Otherwise this was a fairly good book and provides much insight into Cold Fusion.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Learning Book & Reference
Review: The Cold Fusion Web Application Construction Kit is an excellent book for someone to pick up to learn Cold Fusion. I bought the book knowing nothing about Cold Fusion, and having a limited understanding of SQL. Well, after reading Ben Forta's book, I now understand the fundamentals of Cold Fusion and SQL statements. The chapters are divided up nicely, from covering ODBC database access to advanced SQL statements to access these databases. It covers all of the basics of Cold Fusion starting at the ground up, and assuming you know nothing about Cold Fusion, or SQL. After teaching you the basics, it goes into advanced topics like cookies, stored procedures, etc. However, there are a few things that I didn't like in the book (hence only 4 stars). It didn't give a lot of space to cookies and session variables (which I think are important). I also found multiple typos, which were slightly confusing for a while. But other than these few complaints, this is a great book, and I would highly recommend it to someone who wants to learn Cold Fusion and SQL statements.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book for the starters
Review: This is really a good book for the starters. It provides the basic concepts of coldfusion. But for the advance users it is not that good. It does tell you about the session and cookie management but not in depth, chances of getting confused are at many places. Coldfusion is more focused on security but this book does not cover that part efficiently. Encryption and decryption part is little confusing. The language is very good in this book. Overall this book is worth buying.
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