Fostering better development

Building a web application can be haphazard work, as evidenced by the ubiquity of applications that are plagued by bugs and security problems. Fusebox.org, an information portal for Web developers, is trying to stomp out buggy apps by defining a standard methodology for building solid applications.

The Fusebox framework was created by a group of Cold Fusion developers who wanted to define a common-sense methodology that any developer could follow to build a good Web application. As the name implies, the framework is based on the idea of a standard fuse box, where if one fuse blows, the rest of the house still has power.

A Fusebox application contains two types of applications: the circuit application, which performs a single task, and the home application, which is the main application and consists of many circuit applications.

The main idea is that individual circuit applications can be easily fixed or replaced without having to rewrite an entire home application.

To date, the organization (www.fusebox.org) has defined Fusebox specifically for Cold Fusion applications. However, there have been recent moves toward extending Fusebox for Active Server Pages, JavaServer Pages and PHP.