React and CFML : A Natural Fit

React is a “View” framework and makes powerful JavaScript based applications for the browser. CFML is a server side “Controller” language and can rapidly create powerful and secure APIs to be used by outside applications. Here, we’ll create a React app and a CFML API for a working local ecosystem.


In this session, we’ll start with “nothing” and use Create React App to make a simple application which can read and write to a ColdFusion API which we will create using CommandBox and ColdBox. We’ll develop the routes, handlers and models we need to power our API module so it can be consumed by our React app in a local environment. As part of the planning process we’ll go over some conventions that go into building REST applications and setting up our React app for separation of concerns with a UI, controller and a service layer to make the API calls and to handle the responses from the server.