Question

Can anyone expound on disadvantages, if there are any, to using a ColdFusion development framework? I’m developing an application traditionally, and I’m tempted to use a framework having seen how simple some things can be done.

I’m new to ColdFusion and frameworks in general. I want to understand the implications of using a framework, including advantages and disadvantages.

Answer 1

Disadvantages:

• learning curve (pick a lean framework to reduce this)
• front controller makes ugly URL, often needs URL rewrite on web server layer
• risk of framework being discontinued (no support, hard to maintain, break on new CF ver)
• framework bugs (pick a popular framework with good & fast support)
• harder to debug sometimes, since actions are generally not a .cfm anymore. Tip: make use of cfdump and cfabort to see the dump in the controller layer
• some frameworks takes longer to reinit. Since most frameworks will cache the configurations and controller layer for performance, during the development phase, you’ll need to reinit all the time. CF9 eases this problem ’cause it is much faster.
• lastly, sometimes you’ll be using framework’s API, an abstraction from CFML, and missed out on the native ColdFusion way of solving the same problem.

Performance generally is a non issue. Don’t worry.