03-09-2009, 05:15 PM
Fusebox is a popular web development framework for ColdFusion and other web development languages. Fusebox provides Web application developers with a standardised, structured way of developing their applications using a relatively straightforward and easy to learn set of core files and encouraged conventions. In addition to the framework itself, Fusebox has become closely associated with a Web application development methodology developed by its proponents known as 'FLiP'. (Many people refer to Fusebox as a 'methodology', but in fact, as stated, it's a development framework. FLiP, however, is a methodology). Many frameworks provide comparable advantages, however, Fusebox (probably on account of both its relatively long history and the sizeable and active community that supports it) seems to be the most popular one for ColdFusion. Also the framework itself has been ported and used in ASP, JSP and PHP as well.
The concepts behind Fusebox are based on the household idiom of an electrical fusebox that controls a number of circuits, each one with its own fuse. In a Fusebox web application, all requests are routed through a single point (usually index.cfm for ColdFusion) and processed by the Fusebox core files. The application is divided into a number of circuits (usually in sub-directories) which are intended to contain related functionality. Each circuit in the application is further divided into small files called fuses that should perform simple tasks. URLs within a Fusebox web application are usually of the form index.cfm?fuseaction=cname.fname where 'cname' is the name of a circuit and 'fname' is an XML-defined 'method' within that circuit known as a fuseaction
