My Lucee test application
I wanted something small enough that I could learn CFML by breaking it and fixing it.
After getting Lucee running on AlmaLinux, I built a small database-backed application so I would have something more useful than a test page printing the current time.
What I wanted to figure out
- how Lucee fits behind my normal web-server setup
- how datasources are configured and used
- how a request moves through a
.cfmpage - how CFML queries and displays real database data
- what CFCs look like in a small application
Keeping it small on purpose
The app is intentionally ordinary: a few pages, a datasource, some queries, and enough structure to make me actually use the language. I do not need a pretend enterprise application while I am still learning the basics.
cfapp/
|-- Application.cfc
|-- index.cfm
|-- customers.cfm
|-- customer.cfm
|-- components/
| `-- CustomerService.cfc
`-- includes/
|-- header.cfm
`-- footer.cfm
How it is changing
I started by copying the style of older examples I found because that was the easiest material to understand at first. As I spend more time with Lucee, I am trying more CFScript, using CFCs where they make sense, and paying attention to which features are Lucee-specific versus broadly portable CFML.
I am intentionally leaving this as a learning project rather than polishing it into a tutorial. Being able to look back at what I tried and what I misunderstood is part of why I am keeping it.
Things I want to try next
- a small JSON endpoint
- cleaner separation between page rendering and application logic
- tests
- more modern datasource and query patterns
- running the same small app on Lucee and Adobe ColdFusion to see where the differences show up