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CFWheels - Pragmatic, Beautiful Code
- 1. CFWheels Pragmatic, Beautiful code Indy Nagpal Straker Software Melbourne, November 2010
- 2. A bit about me • CTO, Straker Software, New Zealand • Been doing CF (and Flex) for a while • Cloud-based CF Using Railo • In love with Ruby (the language) & Rails – Was in love with Groovy (still am, I think) • nagpals.com/blog
- 4. Agile • Early, continuous delivery of software • Welcome changing requirements • Deliver working software frequently • Working software = progress • Technical excellence and good design • Simplicity is essential – work not done
- 5. “There comes a time in the history of every project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production.”
- 6. Need • Quickly build and deploy database-driven web apps • Rapid iterations in a testable fashion • Easy for multiple developers to understand • Working app is more important than configuring the app
- 7. Search… • Tried lots of frameworks/methodologies • Ruby on Rails addressed most issues • Learn another language and framework • Defeats the whole purpose • Enter, CFWheels…
- 8. What is CFWheels • Framework inspired by Ruby on Rails • Simple organization system • Suited for typical, database-driven web applications • A couple of years’ old – fairly mature
- 9. Convention over configuration • Possibly the single most important thing • Mostly convention, minor configuration • Easy to – turn on – tune in – drop out
- 11. Intuitive Code Structure • View – Responsible for display and user interaction – Receive data from controller • Controller – Process requests from view – Get/process data from model – Make data available to the view • Model – Interacts with the database layer – Responsible for validation – Other methods to process/message data
- 12. Convention - URLs • URLs mapped to controllers/models/views http://blog/posts/edit/1 Controller: Posts Model: Post Action: Edit Key: 1
- 13. View – http://blog/posts/ /views/posts/index.cfm <cfparam name="posts"> <ul> <cfoutput query="posts"> <li> #linkTo( text = "#posts.title#", action = "edit", key = post.id, title = "Edit #posts.name#" )# </li> </cfoutput> </ul>
- 14. Controller – http://blog/posts/ /controllers/Posts.cfc <cfcomponent extends="Controller"> <cfscript> function index(){ posts = model("post").findAll(order="createdAt") } </cfscript> </cfcomponent
- 15. Model – http://blog/posts/ /models/Post.cfc <cfcomponent extends="Model"> <cfscript> function init(){ belongsTo("author") hasMany("comments") validatesLengthOf( properties = "title", minimum = 10, maximum = 255) } </cfscript> </cfcomponent>
- 16. Convention – Files & Database • Place in appropriate folders – MVC • Plural database names, singular model names – DB Table: posts – Model: Post.cfc • Database fields: id, createdat, updatedat
- 17. Built-in ORM • Simple and elegant • All major databases supported • Almost no setup required – baked in • CRUD instantly available via models/plugin • Finding data using “finders” – findOne(), findAll(), findByKey()…
- 18. Associations models/Post.cfc <cfcomponent extends="Model"> <cfscript> function init(){ belongsTo("author") } </cfscript> </cfcomponent> models/Author.cfc <cfcomponent extends="Model"> <cfscript> function init(){ hasMany("posts") } </cfscript> </cfcomponent> <cfscript> posts = model("post").findAll(include="author") author = model("author").findOneByKey(key=params.key,include="posts") </cfscript>
- 19. Dynamic Finders • Dynamic finders are magical model("user").findOne(where="username='bob' and password='pass'") rewritten as model("user").findOneByUsernameAndPassword("bob,pass”)
- 20. URLs and Routing • Beautiful URLs – http://blog/a-good-url • Powerful routing mechanism <cfset addRoute( name = "showPost", pattern = "/[key]”, controller = "Posts", action = "show")> • Can be turned REST-full
- 21. Multiple response formats • http://blog/posts • http://blog/posts.xml • http://blog/posts.json • http://blog/posts.csv • http://blog/posts.pdf
- 22. Common tasks done • Adding timestamps • Flashing messages • Pagination • Sending multi-part emails • Redirecting users
- 23. Lots of helper functions • Views selectBox() linkTo() timeAgoInWords() paginationLinks() titleize() pluralize() • Model validatePresenceOf() findAll() findOneByKey() afterSave() • Controller flash() isGet() sendMail()
- 24. Plugins • Neat architecture to add/override functionality • Extremely useful – Scaffold –generate CRUD application – DBMigrate – Add/edit database structure – Remote Form Helpers – Ajax with forms – Localizer – Localizing an application
- 25. Baked in testing • Ships with RocketUnit <cfcomponent extends="tests.Test"> <cfscript> function test_1_get_timezones(){ qTimezone = model("Timezone").getTimezones() assert("isQuery(qTimezone) ") assert("qTimezone.recordcount eq 56") } </cfscript> </cfcomponent>
- 26. Environments • Different setup for applications based on stages of development – Design, Development, Production, Testing, Maintenance • Differ in terms of caching, error-handling • Switch environments via config/url
- 27. Docs/Support • Very helpful docs at cfwheels.org • Active and supportive mailing list • Quite a few screencasts • Direct knowledge transfer from Ruby on Rails books/docs (e.g., Head First Rails) • Bunch of blogs
- 28. IDE Support • Eclipse, CFBuilder – Syntax Dictionary • Textmate – Bundle • Coda – Lacking, but works by adding Clips
- 29. Beauty • Simple code organization and flow • Easy to understand code – eyeballing code • Common tasks done with minimal code • Pretty URLs • Almost zero configuration, with power to configure as much as needed
- 30. Pragmatic • Focus on simple code that solves issues • Trades pure OO for simplicity and structure • Easy to not use the framework if needed • Common web application problems already solved – why reinvent the wheel(s)!
- 31. Wrap up • Evaluate if you need a ‘framework’ • Learn URL rewrites (Apache, IIS) • Dabble with Ruby on Rails • cfscript = succinct code • Worth trying out just to see how problems can be solved in a different manner