The most unappreciated tag in ColdFusion: cfelse

The idea to create a single serving site came about a long time ago, long before Wired's recent article hit newsstands. Having several domain names in the repository, it seemed like a good idea to throw up a simple, yet original one page site from time to time. But, no ideas have ever really jumped out and screamed at me to create.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a single-serving site is a web site comprised of standalone page setup on a dedicated domain name that only has one purpose. They are usually strange or nerdy sites with a targeted audience, and they may be the next new way to communicate ideas and pass messages. They are becoming a very hot trend in the world of Twitter because they help keep it short, relevant and simple while adding a bit of flavor into the mix.

The idea has been around for a few years, and there are several examples out there. Is Twitter Down, Is Lost a Repeat, Sometimes Red Sometimes Blue and Jello Time, just to name some of the more basic ones.

Wired Magazine published an article in its August edition, titled How Do I Make a Single-Serving Site? Being a Wired subscriber and reader, the article reminded me of my desire to create single-serving websites on a more regular basis. The article also came with a new form of inspiration, as I instantly knew which domain and idea to use for the Brice Cheddarn Development single-serving site experiment.

While crusing expired domains names a few weeks ago, I came across one that would grab the attention of any ColdFusion developer: cfelse.com. I bought the domain right away with an idea for it in mind. It dawned on me one day while programming that the cfelse tag always gets the raw end of the deal in application development. It's the red-headed step child of ColdFusion, and always gets the leftover logic processing in code. When I saw the domain name available, I thought it would be a perfect way to pay tribute to the most unappreciated tag in the ColdFusion library.

Cfelse.com is a single-serving website whose sole purpose is to show the most abused tag how important it really is to the CF community. It uses a combination of CF, JQuery and CSS, and was designed, written and constructed in one day. More improvements and enhancements will be added to the site as time goes on, but it will always remain a single-serving site dedicated to getting the word out about the life and struggles of cfelse. Once comments come in, they will be posted to the page.

More single-serving sites to come in the very near future, too.

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