I have used the past few months to approach ColdBox in two different ways:

1. Existing Applications - Consider porting, or continuing development in ColdBox.  Like any re-factoring, there are pros and cons to this, the main part being cost in time, and fixing something that isn’t really broken.  So I wait for a reason to do it…
2. New Applications - I’m happy to say that I haven’t regretted using ColdBox for my new projects.  The few times I’ve felt I could get i it done quicker with a framework I already know and have some code built up in is quickly offset by realizing once I figure something out, it’s a one time thing.  Blog about it, and I have my search engine for “how did I do that again?”

This approach has had me learning and playing with ColdBox to learn the best way of how I want to do things, and why.  Along the way I have been writing posts (while coding) to quickly document any discoveries where the examples and documentation was found to be a bit lacking.  My idea was to come in later and ColdBox has excellent documentation but I have found that there could be a lot more examples provided to get developers up and running even quicker.

In the past few months I have written a few dozen tips/discoveries.

I thank everyone who has sent in their questions and responses, please keep them coming and I’ll get through them as best as I can.

I’ll publish this post to the blog but not advertise it until I have a solid few tips that I can publish on a regular basis.

My ColdBox 101:

Here’s the problem… I couldn’t get the ColdBox Platform Extension installed in ColdFusion Builder with the existing instructions in the link above.   I suspect the older version of the ColdFusion Builder allowed you to do it from more than one location.

In any event, you have to Click on Window > Show View > Other > Extensions , and allow the extension pane to appear at the bottom of your screen (as my default installation shows).  Then, click on the (+), select the ColdBox Extension zip file and go through the normal setup.

If you’re interested in a quick screencast, all 1 minute of it is below!

http://screencast.com/t/YzdhMjI1M

The things it helps you handle include (Quoted from page above):

• Create handlers, plugins, interceptors and model objects with awesome wizardry
• Create an event handler and have it auto-generate the views, etc.
• Plugin Wizard
• Interceptor Wizard
• Model Object Wizard.. and more

ColdFusion builder is in late-ish beta and it’s great to see some of the plugins that we have for it already.  It’s nice to see such a tool evolving.

Happy ColdBoxing!

I’ve been playing around with the ColdBox Framework for ColdFusion for a few months.

What lead me to ColdBox was a period of discovering and playing around with the discoveries I made with ColdFusion 9 and it’s killer Hibernate ORM integration.

I could no longer program, ever again until ColdFusion 9 came out.. it made for a slower fall on new projects.  I decided to dust off the old exploration cap and started looking at what was new and developing in the ColdFusion world.

For about as long as I can remember I’ve been using FuseBox and my own frameworks prior to it coming into existence. In my modified FuseBox framework I have a simple, efficient, scalable system that has easily handled anything I’ve thrown at it, and more.  It’s very capable and rightfully so.

FuseBox is ColdFusion’s first major Framework and went on to dominate and inspire a lot of change in the PHP world not only with FuseBox itself, but the other great frameworks that exist in that language and maybe beyond.  Sitting in the ColdFusion world it’s nice to see that the ColdFusion “power with ease” eloquence was able to help spread this kind of empowerment, as much as ColdFusion’s continued track record of doing the best of similar languages and frameworks. No offence intended to any of the other great CF frameworks out there — I just didn’t feel the itch to shop around because I felt I had the good stuff at home.

No language, in my experience, has focused on the developer and their experience as much as ColdFusion.  Happy developers make great software.  I like being happy doing what I do.

I came across ColdBox and remembered seeing an earlier version around 2006 that looked really promising. It looks like it’s been delivering on it’s promises.  In defense of my beloved FuseBox, I haven’t looked at the new version in a few years because the one I use has worked so well!

The first thing that struck me was the sheer volume of documentation available on ColdBox.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Someone, actually, seemed, to get the significance of, and anticipate the needs of web application development, and ColdBox was the result.  This was like Allaire/Macromedia/Adobe continuing to anticipate the needs of application developers with ColdFusion. ColdBox looks to this software architect to be the next shining star of ColdFusion, if it’s not already.  It improves both applications and developer’s lives.

We know that application development and application developers are kept happy in some common and unique ways.

At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing.  Everything I’ve needed to touch or use, with respect to a web application and it’s framework, seemingly, conveniently put in one place.  Internationalization, no problem.  Need role based security?  No problem.  Want to add a doo-dad?  Decide if you want an interceptor or a plug-in.  Next question.

What is a software architect to do when something makes him blink?  Get a second opinion from the smartest developer he knows.

My friend is someone I’ve known for almost 15 years.  We shared a path in school but I went off the ColdFusion deep end while he continued learning everything under the sun… except ColdFusion.

So I asked for his unbiased opinion.  Which he’s known to give.  I asked him, find me every fault in this ColdBox and the language of ColdFusion compared to all the languages you’ve ever used.  As a developer completely fresh to this, tell me if something is better than this, and why, because I might want to switch.

Expecting him to correct ColdFusion, and ColdBox the same way he used to correct the professors, assignments, quizzes, exams, and TA’s in university, he came back convinced that ColdBox and ColdFusion is great for developing web applications.  Not to say something else wasn’t, but if he’d pick something ot build on his own he just might use it, especially with the open-source ColdFusion engines like Railo and Open BlueDragon.

So, I’m not crazy.  That’s good.

Here’s the thing with ColdBox for me.  It does MVC, really well, for the web, for web applications.  Yeah, I know Ruby’s got this, ASP.NET’s got that, and Django has something else that’s great.  I have used them all, either with new projects, or maintaining existing ones.

The thing  that happens with any project, over time, is that it either becomes one you want to work on more and more, or one you don’t want to work on due to increasing complexity to add or modify tasks.

We can argue it’s up to the developer to keep things simple, but inevitable the platform and framework play a huge role in what we do, or don’t have to do, or what we do/don’t deal with.

If we put all the languages, frameworks into one pile, there is one key test I use to see the value of any tool.

It is difficult to make the complex into something simple; and it is easy to make the simple into something complex.  Will this help me make the complex into something simple, without dealing with the language, or framework’s complexities?

ColdBox, with ColdFusion seems to understand that most of us have to build things that are solid, reliable and scalable.  99% of web applications that are remotely successful grow.  We need a way to manage that growth and keep the garden looking nice while it grows.

Web developers often have to solve more than simple problems.  We have to solve complex problems and make them simple.   There is little doubt ColdFusion is the best integration language for the web.  It simply does more out of the box than anything.

I have spent the last 2 days working in ColdBox and my impression is this.

I have been amazed at how much of an application I have built already in ColdBox.  Actual business logic.  Actual problem solving.  Actual “this will make someone’s life easier, more efficient and productive”.

What’s changed?  I didn’t build my own roles based security.  I didn’t have to integrate internationalization.  I didn’t have to extend a framework to do more (or less) than it did.  ColdBox appears to be a framework that can be customized easily, or left alone and just run.

To potentially have the best of both worlds (Rapid dev of FuseBox and the scalability of OO-programing), compared to what was out there before, is more than a little staggering to this software architect.  I don’t care to re-invent the wheel, I want to solve problems and help people that are forced to work with poor software.

Beyond learning the ins and outs of ColdBox, I am slowly realizing it’s feeling much like FuseBox did.. the next tool I will use for possibly a long time.  Just like ColdFusion made web development power with ease, ColdBox takes Web application development to a similar of power with ease.

ColdBox allows you to leverage ColdFusion’s rapid application development in such an improved way that I don’t think has happened in several years.  As much as Fusebox first came out for ColdFusion and then spread to PHP, etc., and pushed the bar so much, I think ColdBox will inspire as well.

What’s most impressive is that such a powerful framework has been kept, if I may, simple, relative to the complexity of everything it handles.  That’s something ColdFusion did first, and better than anyone too.

In the coming few days I will start a Quickstart to ColdBox series to catch my first impressions and experiences of piecing it all together, to help you see for yourself what ColdBox could do for you.