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059 Migrating legacy CFML to MVC (Model View Controller) with Nolan Erck

By Michaela Light 3 Comments

Nolan Erck talks about “Migrating legacy CFML to MVC (Model View Controller)” in this episode of the CF Alive Podcast, with host Michaela Light.

Episode highlights

  • What exactly is legacy ColdFusion?
    • A broad term
    • Non-framework code
    • Might use CFIncludes or some CFCs to be modular
    • Even giant 10k lines of code
    • Self-posting forms
  • What the MVC design pattern is and what problems it solves
    • MVC = Model View Controller
      • Model = biz logic and SQL
      • View = front end UI – HTML, CSS, JS
      • Controller = the glue that holds the Model and View together and says which part calls which
    • Customer in a restaurant ordering from a Menu (View) from a Waiter (Controller) to make the food in the kitchen (Model)
    • Maintenance easier
    • Whack a mole bugs
    • Biz logic, HTML, JS and SQL all mixed up together
    • Bit rot/Technical debt
    • Hard for designers to edit the code as the HTML is mixed up
    • Merge conflicts
    • Hard to fully test
      • Manually testing
    • Duplicate code, unused code (deadwood)
    • Specialization of labor
      • UI experts
      • CF developer
      • SQL database engineer
  • How the FW/1 and ColdBox frameworks use a convention-based approach to bring consistent structure to an application
    • Both are modern MVC
    • Use folder to separate the three parts, file naming conventions
    • FW/1 is minimalist, one file, easy to get started
      • MuraCMS uses it
    • ColdBox is heavyweight with more features and add-on packs in the Box ecosphere
      • Testing
      • Caching
      • Etc
      • Ortus supports
    • Other MVC frameworks that are not as maintained
      • CFWheels – These are convention based frameworks
      • Fusebox – XML config file framework
      • Mode Glue – XML config file framework
      • Mach-ii – These are convention based frameworks
  • What Dependency Injection (DI) is, how it simplifies the “model” portion of applications, and how they are used in FW/1 and ColdBox
    • Keeps your objects organized
    • Tools
      • DI/1
      • Wirebox
    • We did a whole interview on this topic in another episode of CF Alive
    • DRY = Don’t Repeat Yourself
    • DI and MVC are independent
  • How to refactor real-world procedural code into MVC-style code
    • What code belongs in the model, the view, and how the controller ties the two together.
    • Cut parts out of giant file to include files
      • Move out the SQL and CF logic
      • Dedup similar code
      • Move out the front end code to View include files
      • Start running with the remaining code in the View
  • Strategies for migrating large applications in phases.
    • ColdBox legacy tool feature
    • Version code such as Git
      • 2 branches
        • Legacy
        • MVC
      • Maintain both
      • AB test each branch
    • All URLs will change
  • Using CommandBox and Git to spin up on-demand instances of ColdFusion and manage our code.
    • CommandBox
      • command line CF
      • Instant server setup or config
      • Any version, Adobe ColdFusion, Railo, Lucee CFML
  • Tool costs
    • FW/1 free
    • ColdBox free, pay or training and support
    • CommandBox – free
    • Git free to paid
    • Source Tree – free
    • Sublime Text – free to shareware paid $35
    • CF Builder free 30-day trial, $300
  • Why are you proud to use CF?
  • WWIT for you to make CF more alive this year?
  • What did you enjoy at CF Summit?

Nolan’s CF Summit workshop description

Do you maintain legacy ColdFusion applications, perhaps written with old procedural-style code? Have you been told you should be using a Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework but don't really understand how that works? Does the idea of rewriting the entire application seem like an impossible task? What if you could instead revamp your code in phases, without having to do it all at once?

Come to this workshop and learn:

  • What the MVC design pattern is and what problems it solves
  • How the FW/1 and ColdBox frameworks use a convention-based approach to bring consistent structure to an application
  • What Dependency Injection (DI) is, how it simplifies the “model” portion of applications, and how they are used in FW/1 and ColdBox
  • How to refactor real-world procedural code into MVC-style code

Hands-on portion of the workshop will:

  • Analyze and deconstruct a simple procedural application to see what code belongs in the model, the view, and how the controller ties the two together.
  • Move the code into the appropriate MVC layers and test it.
  • Discuss strategies for migrating large applications in phases.
  • Use CommandBox and Git to spin up on-demand instances of ColdFusion and manage our code.

This workshop will help anyone with a moderate skill level in ColdFusion, and at least some familiarity with object-oriented programming concepts. It will be a Bring-Your-Own-Laptop session. Prior to the CF Summit we will provide links and instructions to download and install CommandBox and the sample application code.

Mentioned in this episode

And to continue learning how to make your ColdFusion apps more modern and alive, I encourage you to download our free ColdFusion Alive Best Practices Checklist.

Because… perhaps you are responsible for a mission-critical or revenue-generating CF application that you don’t trust 100%, where implementing new features is a painful ad-hoc process with slow turnaround even for simple requests.

What if you have no contingency plan for a sudden developer departure or a server outage? Perhaps every time a new freelancer works on your site, something breaks. Or your application availability, security, and reliability are poor.

And if you are depending on ColdFusion for your job, then you can’t afford to let your CF development methods die on the vine.

You’re making a high-stakes bet that everything is going to be OK using the same old app creation ways in that one language — forever.

All it would take is for your fellow CF developer to quit or for your CIO to decide to leave the (falsely) perceived sinking ship of CFML and you could lose everything—your project, your hard-won CF skills, and possibly even your job.

Luckily, there are a number of simple, logical steps you can take now to protect yourself from these obvious risks.

No Brainer ColdFusion Best Practices to Ensure You Thrive No Matter What Happens Next

ColdFusion Alive Best Practices Checklist

ColdFusion Alive Best Practices Checklist

Modern ColdFusion development best practices that reduce stress, inefficiency, project lifecycle costs while simultaneously increasing project velocity and innovation.

√ Easily create a consistent server architecture across development, testing, and production

√ A modern test environment to prevent bugs from spreading

√ Automated continuous integration tools that work well with CF

√ A portable development environment baked into your codebase… for free!

 

Learn about these and many more strategies in our free ColdFusion Alive Best Practices Checklist.

ColdFusion Alive by Michaela Light 059 Migrating legacy CFML to MVC (Model View Controller) with Nolan Erck
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Bio

Nolan Erck has been developing software for 19 years. Starting in the video game industry working on titles for Maxis and LucasArts, then advancing to web development in 1999, his list of credits includes Grim Fandango, StarWars Rogue Squadron, SimPark, SimSafari as well as high-traffic websites for clients. Nolan manages the SacInteractive User Group, teaches classes on aspects of software development, and regularly gives presentations at conferences and user groups across the country. He is also Chief consultant at South of Shasta.

Interview transcript

Michaela:          Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with Nolan Erck from South of Shasta Consulting. And we're gonna be talking about ColdFusion Best Practices. But more importantly, when the best practices are not the best practice. So we'll look at best practices, and what they really are. What is technical debt, and why you don't want too much of it on your project. Picking two of good, cheap, and quick, and how to do that. We’ll look at a very naughty tag called C.F. form, and when they actually could be cool to use. And when it is okay to change code on your production server. We'll also look at some frameworks you may not be using, and what to do with error messages, and the best practice there. So, welcome Nolan.

Nolan:              Thanks for having me.

Michaela:          Hey, I'm glad to have you back on the show. And Nolan’s being very popular. He was speaking in C.F. objective. I think you are in four sessions, or something.

Nolan:              Part of four sessions, yeah.

Michaela:          Yeah, and he's also speaking N.C. Defcon, C.F. camp, and C.F. summit. So we'll talk more about those towards the end of the episode. But first, let's just clarify what exactly is a best practice? We hear about them all the time. What exactly is a best practice?

Nolan:              So best practice is a technique, or a guideline of some kind that has generally been accepted by whatever community you're part of. In this case ColdFusion or CFML. As that's the at least currently less proper respected way to do whatever the task is you're talking about. The reason I say most current is sometimes, best practices of all over the course of the evolution of the language, or evolution of the technology stack, or whatever. So it might be a best practice today, may not have been a best practice five years ago. And it might not be a best practice five years in the future.

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