[[CaseStudies | << Back to Case Studies ]] | [[Dashboard | << Back to Dashboard ]] __NOTOC__ = Amcom Technology Case Study = == Background Information == * http://www.amcomtech.net/ * [http://www.amcomtech.net/whitepapers/MVC%20Framework%20Analysis.pdf Amcom MVC Analysis Document] === Summarize your current project === A business rules engine to automate what is currently a manual and subjective decision making process. Utilizing a series of inputs, the rules engine determines the next possible steps. === How many developers in the team === 7 Developers === What is your / your team's CFML and ColdBox experience? === We?re relatively new to it. But the ColdBox learning curve is minimal, so getting ramped up to proficient level is quick and smooth. === Do you or your team have any framework experience? === 20% of the staff have prior significant framework experience. === How long have you been working with ColdBox? === 3 months == Technical Information == === What version of ColdBox are you using? === ColdBox 3 ===What CFML Engine are you using? === Adobe ColdFusion 9 === Was there a technical hurdle that ColdBox was able to overcome? If so, what was it? === * ColdBox allowed us to introduce the framework into our existing legacy application without having to redo the application. We want to ColdBox-ify features as needed based on business priority, while at the same time using ColdBox on all new features. * Because of some of the ways the legacy application works we had to do a little bit of configuration work to make it happen (CB and Application.cfc application mappings). === Is there a particular feature in ColdBox that stands out to you and/or your team? === * Debug output is excellent. * Documentation * SES URLs * Advanced Caching * Interceptors are really neat. === Did ColdBox help your application's maintainability, deployment and scalability? === Since CB takes out a lot of the guess work and helps a team stay consistent, it makes it easy for any developer to get in there and understand what?s going on. === Did you integrate other technologies, libraries, frameworks with ColdBox? If so, how was the integration process? === ColdSpring ? CB is ready to go with CS. == Architecture == === Where does ColdBox fit in your or your team's architecture long term? Does it have a primary role? Secondary role? === After an exhaustive analysis of ColdFusion frameworks, our company has standardized as ColdBox being the core application technology for framework and architecture. === What made you choose ColdBox? What where ColdBox's main advantages? === * We needed to maintain development velocity in order to meet business demands, so we didn?t have the luxury of slowing down and taking a huge learning curve hit. * We develop everything off of a large (500K lines of code) flagship product that has been in development since ColdFusion 4, so many aspects of it are ''old school''. It?ll never be a business priority to rewrite the entire application, so we needed a framework that would allow us to progressively framework-afy this product without breaking existing functionality. * Documentation, numerous examples, and conventions based approach significantly reduce the learning curve. * From a business perspective, you want to minimize exposure to the chances of a technology becoming obsolete, or unsupported. This risk can be higher when it comes to open source initiatives ? ColdBox is the most actively maintained framework, which is a very good sign. * Paid support is available. * Contributors of ColdBox actively support their community. == General == === What was your experience building your applications using ColdBox? === Very positive experience. Any problems that we encountered we were able to find the answer through the documentation or in the forums. === What advice would you give to someone coming into using ColdBox? === # Start with one of the simple examples, and use that as a pattern to build your application. # Don?t worry about trying to use all the features all at once. With ColdBox it?s easy to continually refine your work to re-factor logic into other layers and what not. === Was the ColdBox documentation and advantage to your development? === Absolutely! === Where your business goals address and accomplished? === Absolutely!