Apologies for some ambiguity wrong terms on my part... >Agreed. Our team usually splits work up according to skill sets so that >one developer might build the model behind an application while another >developer builds the view and another builds the controller. A good >example on macromedia.com is the membership system: one developer was >responsible for the CFCs that model the underlying database entities >and transactional elements; another developer built the controller >facade CFC layer (actually multiple CFCs that extend a base CFC); yet >another developer wrote the HTML (CF) view; a fourth developer write >the Flash view. See: > >http://www.macromedia.com/special/under_the_hood/report1/#coldfusion- >flash > >MVC is very amenable to this sort of workload distribution. FB4 is >MVC-friendly, Mach II is specifically an MVC framework and even in FB3, >the display / action / query fuses could easily be handed out to >different developers. > >I think this may be why a lot of one-man shops find FB to be an >unnecessary overhead: it is a framework that allows easy distribute of >work 'parcels'.
I agree with you about the FB experiences of "one-man shops". I've done a lot of fusebox apps completely alone, and it can be very hard as sole architect/developer to have the discipline to follow all of the conventions all of the time (specifically of FB3 and FLiP in my case). The temptation is to take shortcuts in your Fusedoc documentation and XFAs, etc., and also to take shortcuts in unit testing, and this can be very bad. You're left with an application that surely has undiscovered bugs/missing functionality, and the bugs/functionality might be hard to fix if all the conventions weren't properly followed. I'm sure similar things happen if you take shortcuts with any other framework. >> I know FB4 and FuseQ are not equivalent to MVC, the formers are >> architectures and the latter is a design methodology. > >Hmm, FB4 and FuseQ are frameworks, not architectures. MVC is a design >pattern, not a methodology. Frameworks are often implementations of >architectures, e.g., Mach II is an implementation of implicit >invocation (an event-based architecture). Benoit's MVCF is a >methodology based on the MVC design pattern. Thanks for the clarifications. I've yet to take software engineering (that'll happen next spring) and read up on all the theory so ill blame muddling up the terms on that. Your reply is what I meant to say :-) >> But FB4 intrinsically encourages structured design methodologies such >> as MVC, so MVC happened to provide a good context for explaining my 2 >> cents. > >I actually think that's a bit of a strong claim and somewhat >unsubstantiated: developers can still (very easily) create terrible >code using a framework unless they are *also* following good design >practices. I'm sure people will write terrible applications using FB4 >just as people have written terrible applications with other frameworks >and without frameworks. People can even create terrible MVC-based >applications. A good framework provides structure and structure removes >some of the degrees of freedom that allow developers to write bad code. >Poor developers will continue to write poor applications, regardless of >their framework, until they learn about good design and understand it >and start to practice it. > >Sean A Corfield -- http://www.corfield.org/blog/ > Good points. Frameworks and design patterns indeed do not result in anything good when poor developers get their hands on them. I started getting at this when i said "Notice the words such as 'proper' and 'well-designed', though...", but you are right in that a good application needs good developers who understand the framework and conventions, not just a good framework (or effective lack thereof) and set of conventions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
