Tartan: a new service framework for ColdFusion

Frameworks are a lot of fun to build. Over the last month I have been working on a framework for building ColdFusion service layers. I built it with the intension of making it available locally and remotely using Flash Remoting and web services. I have decided to call this framework Tartan.

Tartan is a command-driven service framework for ColdFusion. It was built to help produce the service layer within a larger application architecture which relies on strict separation or layering of functionality.

All access to the underlying business logic is controlled by public services which are available locally as CFCs and remotly via Flash Remoting and SOAP web services. A service can be composed of any number of commands, each of which implements a discreet operation within the application. These contain the core logic for the application. Commands can communicate with databases via DAOs, manipulate values received from the client, execute other commands and even communicate with services available on other remote servers.

At the center of Tartan are 6 core classes: RemoteService, LocalService, Command, DAO, ValueObject and ExceptionHandler. They provide most of the functionality of the framework, and must be extended by the application developer.

Although I am still working on proper documentation, there is some already, and tartan is now available for download as a part of the OpenXCF project on SourceForge via CVS. I will make it available as a single download really soon.