The Hawaii ColdFusion User Group is looking for a speaker to give a talk on MVC & ColdFusion. I would like to have a meeting on the design pattern for regular ColdFusion sites, not using a framework. This will be for our March meeting.

I know CF has a large no-framework crowd, but my 2 cents on this is that it is a waste of time to discuss MVC outside of frameworks. You'd never find this sort of talk in Java, Ruby, Node, or Kotlin. PHP may be the only other language out there where non-framework MVC is somewhat common, but IMO for all the same wrong reasons as CFML 🙂

I agree with @bdw429s. I also think presenting "regular ColdFusion sites" vs [ones using a framework] is not a balanced view. More accurate would be "badly-architected ColdFusion sites" vs ones using frameworks, or perhaps "legacy ~". No codebases created in the last 20yrs can justify not using a framework. Not using a framework in a contemporary codebase should not be normalised as a legitimate practice. Still: get the intent. For better or for worse, there is a lot of poorly-crafted CFML code out there, and it's something that could do with being remedied. So with a bit pf repositioning, it could be a helpful topic. "Legacy CFML websites: easy steps to begin the transition to an MVC approach" or something.

my quick take: popular framework > custom framework > no framework. no framework is bad; custom framework can teach people about under-the-hood stuff and give total control to dev; popular framework lets you get shit done.

Poss. In my experience "custom framework" usually arises from ppl who have no business writing their own framework in the first place. Usually a mistake made by an intermediate-level dev. However I also see this in... erm... "popular" frameworks. In isolated situations.

Thanks so much for the feedback for the MVC talk. I found a speaker that will talk about MVC in general, which should teach about the design pattern in general. I wanted this talk to teach people (especially myself) about the design pattern in general. I want a talk on ColdBox next as I want to learn this framework, but I don't understand MVC and how can you use a framework that you don't understand the design pattern that it uses.,

I reckon there's really a lot of ppl who use ColdBox that don't understand MVC... that's the thing about frameworks... they take the thinking about such things away from you. But yeah, an abstract discussion on MVC would be good. I think devs in 2023 should have at least passing familiarity with most if not all the GoF design patterns. Even if they don't use them, awareness is important when dealing with other code or any narrative on code which could refer back to them; it also saves wheel-reinvention a bit. I do not advocate actually reading the GoF book unless one is a masochist / completist... instead read Head First Design Patterns: it is very accessible.

@Adam Cameron on March 31st at 12:00pm Hawaiian time

22:00 UTC. Duly noted.

late to the party, but re: frameworks - I'm reminded of this article http://blog.ryanflorence.com/you-cant-not-have-a-framework.html tl;dr - if you don't have a framework, you will build your own