Ok, so I know I go on about VAR scoping like I'm a raving lunatic, but I wanted to share the following "testimonial" from a reader today:

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for your constant "harping" on var scoping in cfcs. I am still a horrible newbie when it comes to Coldfusion, and before the newest contest (in which I am participating), I did not know of var scoping. I have been recently developing a large application (well, large for me!) and I was absolutely stumped on why I could not get my cfc to return the value I had specified. I fiddeled with it for about two hours to no avail. Finally, I decided to add a simpleto my cfc. Surprise, surprise, it started working!

Well, enough rambling. I thank you for your insistence on this issue, and especially appreciate the time that you have devoted to highlighting the need and utilization of this simple coding practice.

Nice. This is also a good time to remind folks about the VarScopeChecker tool. Last time I used the tool it dug up a bunch of missing var statements.