Nolan Erck talks about “ColdFusion and Angular (Modern Development Strategies)” in this episode of the CF Alive Podcast, with host Michaela Light.
Contents
- Show notes
- What is Angular
- Why use it
- Angular 1 (aka AngularJS) vs Angular 2 (currently versions 5/6/7)
- Node.js on laptop to build Angular 2 apps
- CommandBox
- Backend APIs
- Why CF and Angular
- Angular and CF Security
- Design patterns for Angular
- Dependency Injection
- The API Manager
- Why are you proud to use CF?
- WWIT to make CF more alive this year?
- What did you enjoy at CFCamp?
- Mentioned in this episode
- Listen to the Audio
- Bio
- Links
- Interview transcript
Show notes
What is Angular
- Competitors: React, Vue.JS, jQuery
Why use it
Angular 1 (aka AngularJS) vs Angular 2 (currently versions 5/6/7)
- Version 1 easy to get started and is still used
- Version 2+ requires Node.Js on your laptop
- Compiled TypeScript → JavaScript
- Typed language – compile time checking of variables etc
- Book “Angular 7, Bootstrap, and ColdFusion” by Jeffry Houser
Node.js on laptop to build Angular 2 apps
CommandBox
Backend APIs
- REST
- JSON
Why CF and Angular
- Perfect match
- CF versions 11+ have REST support
- ColdBox REST
- Taffy
- Direct CFC function calling return format = JSON
- Some biz logic and validation can be in Angular
Angular and CF Security
- Handshake login token or cookie
- Validation in CF code too
Design patterns for Angular
- Taffy (esp for legacy code)
- MVVM
- MVC
Dependency Injection
- CF
- Coldspring
- DI/1
- WireBox
- Angular
- List of libraries in an array at front of code
The API Manager
Angular is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks going today and is a great tool for building front-end web apps that talk to server-side APIs. Among ColdFusion's many great features are several ways to easily build APIs. In this podcast, Nolan talks about the best ways to combine the two.
The excitement in front-end UX development is happening with JavaScript frameworks such as Angular. Nolan discusses the benefits of building your application in the Web Browser and using ColdFusion as a back-end. We talk about strategies for adding Angular onto a legacy CF site or a modern Web Component architecture. We also touch on using MVC frameworks to build APIs in ColdFusion, Dependency Injection, the API Manager, JSON serialization in ColdFusion 2018, and AngularJS vs Angular 5/6.
Why are you proud to use CF?
WWIT to make CF more alive this year?
What did you enjoy at CFCamp?
Mentioned in this episode
- Angular 1
- Angular 2+
- TypeScript
- Book – Learn With: Angular 7, Bootstrap, and ColdFusion: Enterprise Application Development with Angular 7 and ColdFusion Kindle Edition
by Jeffry Houser - Node.js
- CommandBox
- REST assured book by Adam Tuttle
- MVVM = Model-View-ViewModel
- MVC = Model View Controller
- The CF API Manager
- FusionReactor
Listen to the Audio
Bio
Nolan Erck
Nolan Erck has been developing software for 21 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 a variety of 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.
When he's not consulting or talking about himself in the third person, Nolan can usually be found working on one of several music projects.
Links
Interview transcript
Michaela Light: 00:01 Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm here with Noland up and we're gonna be talking about cold fusion and angular and we're gonna look at why you might want to use those both together and we'll also start off just with a refresher of what angular is and the difference between this differences between angular one and angular two and also talk a bit about coldfusion Api. So welcome Nolan.
Nolan Erck: 00:24 Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Michaela Light: 00:27 Yeah, good to see you too. And if you don't know Nolan, he is a chief coldfusion guru at uh, south of Shasta productions and he's been doing programming for more than 20 years and started off doing game programming, but now he's been doing coldfusion and other web development for quite a while and he just came back from Germany where he was speaking at cf camp on cold fusion Anangula I did. So I think we should just start off for folks who don't know. Angular is um, you know what Miller.
Nolan Erck: 01:08 Okay. So angular is one of the growing piles of javascript frameworks that are getting really popular these days. I'm like the other ones, Vue, js and react. Uh, the basics of what angular does is it gives you a model view controller structure for your javascript applications. The more people are relying on Javascript to build modern web development to have more than just the typical request-response sort of behavior in their applications. A more functionality is going into Javascript than used to be there maybe five, 10 years ago and people are writing tons more javascript now. Therefore the need lots more organization of that Javascript and that's where these javascript frameworks come into play. And Angular is one of the current handful of really popular frameworks to help give you that structure to your front-end applications.
Read more
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
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.
