The Fusebox Conference (www.cfconf.org/fusebox2004/) is the national Fusebox and Mach-II programming conference that Rockville, MD-based consulting firm TeraTech (www.teratech.com) hosts each fall. Fusebox is a framework with an associated methodology (FliP), which is a way to create Web programs that are easier to maintain and deliver what clients really want rather than what they said they wanted.
Fusebox 4.1
I flew overnight from San Francisco and caught the Metro out to Twinbrook which is a short walk to the hotel. Very convenient. Unfortunately, I missed Michael Smith's welcome speech and speaker introductions and Hal Helms's keynote on the state of the Fusebox union. I caught the tail end of John Quarto von-Tivadar's "New Aspects FB 4.1" talk (which ended up being just a single session - he obviously raced through everything!).
Fusebox 4.1 introduces a number of enhancements over 4.0 with the biggest features being:
- Content variables on the <include> verb
- "One-stop" core files (which can be shared between multiple FB apps - and should reduce the temptation to modify the core files)
- Assertions at development time (I have long-standing reservations about any sort of assert mechanism, but FB4.1 automatically disables them in production, which is a step in the right direction)
- Better support for CFCs through <instantiate> and <invoke> verbs
How compatible is FB4.1 with FB4.0? Well, I took the FB4BlogMVC app (which I was using for my Blackstone demo) and changed index.cfm to use the new core files and it all worked exactly the same. I'd say that's pretty compatible. Oh, and FB4.1 in development mode is faster than FB4.0 in development mode because it actually checks file timestamps to see if files need reparsing and regenerating instead of blindly reparsing everything.
John also gave a look at a 4.2 feature: extending the grammar with your own namespaces (aka "lexicons"). This feature is enabled in experimental form in the 4.1 core files (so it is not "supported" yet). It requires quite a bit of knowledge about how the transformer works if you want to write your own verbs, but it does offer some very powerful options for FB developers. Good work John Q et al!
Fusebox Explorer, CFCs
I chatted with Maxim Porges of Westgate Resorts for awhile about JDBC connection issues in Java - which made us both realize how much CFMX does for us in terms of database connectivity.
Steve Nelson was hawking his wares as usual at a booth near the session rooms. I sat with him while he demoed his Fusebox Explorer extension for Dreamweaver. He has incorporated his test harness generator into the explorer, which is very impressive: write your Fusedocs, click a button, instant test harness! It makes the process so seamless and so easy that I expect it will encourage a great many Fuseboxers to (a) switch to Dreamweaver and (b) start writing Fusedocs and using test harnesses. Keep an eye on Steve's blog (steve.secretagents.com/) for more details about this.
In Barney Boisvert's talk on using CFCs with Fusebox 4, he explained the benefits of MVC (encapsulation, separation of UI and controller and model) and of using CFCs for the model (encapsulation, reuse). Then he showed an MVC app where UI validation and business validation were mixed (a typical scenario) and how CFCs let you cleanly separate the validation responsibilities - a very good example. There was a lot of good information in his talk and, with FB4.1 becoming available, I'm sure more people will start using CFCs in their Fusebox apps.
XML, Case Studies, Fusepanel, Networking
After lunch I attended Jeff Peters' presentation on XML and Fusebox Configuration files. Jeff gave an overview of XML and explained why it is a good thing. Then he walked through fusebox.xml and circuit.xml (this was a beginners track session), talking about each section of the XML and what it meant. It was a good clear explanation for Fusebox beginners.
Next up was a case study session with several folks talking about how Fusebox had helped them get a grip on complex, runaway projects. I was very impressed by Maxim Porges who talked about a fairly major rearchitecture of a spaghetti application to provide an OO layer (CFCs) that was then wrapped in a Fusebox 4 UI layer.
The Fusebox panel was next with the usual suspects fielding questions from attendees covering a variety of topics. I didn't take too many notes during this session so I can't remember what was being discussed... sorry... but it's always a good opportunity for folks to ask penetrating questions of the "inner circle."
I went back to my room for awhile to continue working on my Blackstone demo code and then went to the networking/Fuseball event in the hotel's gaudy nightclub (the music was mercifully quiet this time so we could actually talk). A group of us went to dinner and continued our Fusebox/ColdFusion discussions.
Blackstone, Mach II, and Ant
Sunday morning started far too early at 8:30 a.m. with my session on the next version of ColdFusion, codenamed "Blackstone." I went over the public highlights of Blackstone and then walked through some feature demos using Sandy Clark's Fusebox 4 Blog example application (actually the version created by Brian Kotek that reworks it as a strict MVC application). The new Blackstone UI features were popular and the event gateway demo was very well received.
Next was a Mach II Birds of a Feather session, run by Ben Edwards. There weren't many Mach II users in the audience and I think some folks thought it would be more of an introduction to Mach II (which Ben was originally due to give but he gave up his slot for my session on Blackstone I think). Given the lack of other Mach II material at this year's Fusebox conference, I'm not sure how much folks actually got out of this session. Fortunately there was a full-day Mach-II class after the conference on Monday.
I caught part of John Paul Ashenfelter's session on leveraging open source Java tools (he was showing how powerful the Ant build system is) and I also stuck my head into the Fusebox tools session run by Matt Liotta. Steve Nelson was showcasing his awesome Fusebox Explorer for Dreamweaver.
More Helium
Then Matt Liotta and Howard Fore talked about He3, the new Eclipse-based ColdFusion IDE. They showcased some of the new functionality coming in Beta 2 soon (Beta 1 was launched at CFUN. Beta 2 includes substantial rewriting of core functionality according to Liotta). They showed SQL syntax highlighting and insight and said that in development they have dynamic SQL insight based on the actual tables, etc., in whichever database you are connected to. Their intent is to provide functionality close to the MS SQL Enterprise Manager directly within He3.
They also showed the new split-pane folder/file navigator tab, much like HomeSite, which was very well received by the audience. Beta 2 will also add code outlining (already present in CFEclipse) and will provide a built-in Web browser (based on the embedded version of your platform's default browser selection). Probably the biggest win for the Fusebox community is the incorporation of a wireframing tool built directly into He3, complete with HTML page generation.
Other new features include a task list driven by TODO comments in the code validation based on doctype and, coming soon, a multilanguage tag insight (e.g., CFML insight for tags, but inside a <cfquery> tag you'll get SQL insight and inside a JavaScript <script> tag you'll get JavaScript insight and so on). No release date was given for the beta.
Matt and others then ran a panel on "Selling Fusebox," discussing ways to convince your boss (or clients) that Fusebox is a good way to go. Michael Smith closed the conference with the usual round of thanks to sponsors, speakers, and attendees, and a selection of raffle prizes. My evaluation form came home with me so no chance of prizes for me...my bad!
Overall, a great conference for CFers regardless of whether you are pro-Fusebox or not. If you're a Fuseboxer, you'll learn a lot of best practices for Fusebox. If you're new to Fusebox you can attend the beginners track and get some great introductory material. If you're anti-Fusebox, you can at least find out why some people love it so much. You never know, it might just open your eyes to what Fusebox (and FLiP) has done for some people. I certainly came away from the conference very excited about the new release of Fusebox.
Now it's time to start looking forward to next summer's CFUN-05 (www.cfconf.org/cfun-05/), which promises to be even bigger and better than CFUN-04 was.
