Event Driven Programming?

Posted At : February 18, 2009 11:08 AM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Software Development,General,Training,Code

One of the things we'll be working with in the class next week is event driven programming. Instead of the front controller pattern used by the popular ColdFusion application frameworks (Fusebox, Mach-II, Model Glue), I'm using a decentralized approach that lets both clients and servers (through a proxy) listen for events and respond.

I find this approach has benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks are inherent in the approach: it's decentralized. Unlike, for example, Fusebox -- where all the fuseactions are viewable from a single file -- this approach scatters actions throughout the code.

The benefits, though, are considerable. Adding functionality into a site is much, much simpler. Maintenance is easier. Testing is easier. And because a good deal of the work is done on the client, applications are much more responsive and have more of a desktop feel.

How about you? Anyone experimented with event driven programming and have any experiences/comments to share?

(If you're interested in learning how to do event driven programming, I'll be holding a class on UX progrmming for ColdFusion developers Apr. 20-24 in Las Vegas. We should have more info and a signup available soon.)

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Glad to see event-driven programming getting some love. Have you checked out Edmund, my event-driven micro-framework?

http://edmund.riaforge.org

# Posted By Sean Corfield | 2/18/09 12:22 PM

Not yet, Sean, but I certainly will!

# Posted By Hal | 2/18/09 7:24 PM

One thing I've not seen much discussion of regrading event-driven systems is the matter of security and integrity control. When passing events into most systems it seems that it's entirely too easy for a user or malicious program to start passing in parameters like action=delete&id=1234.

Delete is an extreme example, but any system of passing events between pages seems especially susceptible to random events and possible out-of-order execution.

Any thoughts?

# Posted By Michael Long | 2/19/09 5:55 PM

@Michael, even your example of delete with the id in the url also will still have to be protected. More than likely the user is logged into the app and there would be some other safety checks like making sure that the item in question belongs to this user and that they have the right permissions to perform this action.

# Posted By Hatem Jaber | 2/19/09 7:20 PM

@Michael In the system I'm talking about, the events aren't passed by URL. They're jQuery custom events. When server calls are made, they're made through the CFAJAXPROXY call.

# Posted By Hal | 2/20/09 11:09 AM

@Sean Is there an overview of Edmond?

# Posted By Hal | 2/20/09 11:10 AM

There's a preso on my blog (in the right hand column) but the Adobe TV recording of my MAX preso flows better:

http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f15384v1007

# Posted By Sean Corfield | 2/21/09 5:56 PM

Hi! I have only read several publications about event driven programming which found by http://rapid4me.com search engine, unfortunately didn't have an opportunity to visit your class, but even without it at your blog I have found much useful. Thanks!

# Posted By larriertt | 9/15/09 12:06 PM

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Event Driven Programming?