Proposed New Years Resolution: Write Re-usable Models
The best patterns (and anti-patterns) are driven by use cases. The use case driving this anti pattern is that as we move into 2007 more and more applications should be able to expose their model directly for non-page based requests (think Flex, AJAX and/or web service calls). Given that you want to keep your application DRY (check out the PDF), it is important that you don’t put any business logic in your HTML controller unless the logic is HTML page specific. Check out Sean's article and the two simple questions for more on how to avoid this anti-pattern.
Of course, if you have an application that you know will never need to expose the model to anything other than HTML page requests, it doesn’t really matter if you put some business logic in your controller, but if you ever wanted to change frameworks (say between MG and M2) the less you put in the controller, the better.
I would add to that, "if for some reason cohesion isn't important to you."
Case in point: I spend a good chunk of my time doing 2-4 hour projects to add a new feature to an existing site I've built. Typically new db table, object, admin list, add, edit and delete for 1-2 objects and maybe 2-3 front end views within the existing content management system. Until I'm done with my OO generator I simply can't spec, code, deploy, test and deliver an OO project with a couple of custom objects and a total of 10-11 screens in a couple of hours but I can do that easily the "old way".
And the clients? They get what they want - just enough engineering at the lowest possible price. It is that work (and the hosting revenue) that pays for me to be able to work on all the OO and app gen patterns the rest of the time while still making payroll!
Agreed 100% (and anyone who hasn't - check out ColdBox - do so - it seems cool to me!!!). I'm working up my own OO framework which makes all of the parts of the process quicker, but until that is in place, I still throw together simple projects with a simple architecture and it's important to remind people that not EVERYTHING has to be OO!
Well, I do that too. =) If there is not much use for the MVC tool, then there simply isn't much use for it. I don't think its the end-all architecture to everything. Sometimes using it is like taking your RV to the grocery store instead of your car. It will get the job done, but it's a little too much.
But, that can still be cohesive (I suppose there are degrees of cohesion, rather than being "either-or"). I was thinking though, that if you are taking the time to (try to) build a well-architected application, then you may as well keep your classes cohesive. With that said though, I often thought of my models as dumb - they know about the data, but nothing more. Therefore, my controllers "controlled" the business logic. But, having them cfc-based, I could still use them for non-html front-ends. However, it's not the models that were dumb - it was just me - and I guess I was just calling everything by someone else's name.