The Obvious Question

For those who haven't yet dived into ColdBox 4.0, the obvious question is this: "Will ColdBox 4.0 work with my flavor of CFML?"

What The Flavor?

You may not have thought about CFML this way before. CFML is the language. The servers that interpret that language are the flavors.

 ColdFusion (Adobe) is a flavor of CFML, also referred to as "Adobe CF", "ACF", or the long form: "Adobe ColdFusion".

 Railo is another flavor of CFML, also commonly referred to as "Railo CF", or "Railo ColdFusion".

 Lucee is the newest flavor of CFML. It hasn't been around long enough to generate any nicknames yet.

Does ColdBox 4.0 work with these flavors of CFML?

Short Answer: "Yes"

Yes, and don't worry about it. For most intents and purposes, it will just work, and it will work well.

Now for the "off the beaten path" examples, like the seriously outdated version of a CFML flavor that cannot be upgraded, the simple answer does not apply. That doesn't mean "no", it means that your case requires special care (as it probably does in most everything you do with a seriously outdated version of a CFML flavor). 

Medium Answer: "Putting ColdBox 4.0 into your project is easy".

That's why we don't talk about it much - because it's just that simple.

The ColdBox team works in every relevant version of CFML and has hands-on experience using the framework in each flavor. Also, from time to time, projects will move from one flavor or version of CFML to another. I have personally worked on a few of those kinds of transitional projects. They did have their challenges, because there are real differences between CFML flavors and versions. But the one thing we didn't have to wonder or worry about was whether ColdBox would work with it.

Because it simply worked.

In a CFML version or flavor transition, ColdBox is the easiest part.

Long Answer: "ColdBox 4.0 is tested against flavors of CFML to ensure compatibility"

Remember TestBox? TestBox is awesome, right? We think so! We use it too!

Before each release, the ColdBox team runs the framework against hundreds of tests (couldn't narrow down exactly how many hundred, but it's over 500) on each CFML flavor to ensure compatibility. To break that down, the team ran ColdBox 4.0 against all of the framework tests on Adobe ColdFusion. Then, they ran all those tests again on Railo. Then, they ran all those tests again on Lucee. ColdBox 4.0 was not considered alpha until it successfully passed all of those tests in all of the flavors.

The ColdBox team doesn't hope it will work. They put forth the effort to ensure that it will work.

So, it is with confidence that we can say,

"ColdBox 4.0 is compatible with all relevant flavors of CFML".