ColdFusion, Lucee
& BoxLang.

This site runs on one 1-vCPU DigitalOcean instance with no APM vendor — just a self-built page reading JVM metrics directly, and the habit of watching it. Covers which numbers actually matter (GC time ÷ uptime, not raw seconds), a real bug caught along the way (the JVM thought it had 8 cores, not 1), load-testing to find the real throughput ceiling, and trimming the Docker image 60% by dropping CommandBox entirely.

Robert replaced a synchronous third-party analytics service (which caused outages when rate-limited) with a custom `RequestLogger.bx` for his site. It uses a bounded in-memory queue, non-blocking middleware, and a background scheduled thread to batch-flush rows to SQL every 5s, with periodic cleanup of old records. Doubles as a boxlang-express middleware tutorial covering closures, Java interop (ConcurrentLinkedQueue, dynamic proxies), and defensive error handling.

Bots/FF Mastermind: ranged robot pets + Force Field shields for team defense. Forgiving, solid solo past lvl 22. Prioritize shields, Leadership/Fighting pools, Mace Mastery epic for soft-capped defense + high recharge via LotG uniques. Slotting favors pet survivability over damage. Incarnates lean recharge/defense; Lore/Judgement are playstyle calls.

I rebuilt this blog on boxlang-express, my own Express.js-style BoxLang framework, moving from a CommandBox droplet to a thin DigitalOcean App container, with static assets on Cloudflare R2 and a homegrown MySQL access log replacing GoatCounter. Also: DismalThreads, my BoxLang/CBWire Reddit-style forum, is getting decommissioned end of month, no real users beyond my own test accounts, though the code may go public on GitHub.

BoxLang Express went from basic routing to a full-featured framework across 10 releases (0.1.1→0.1.14): sessions, CSRF, CORS, rate limiting, security headers, uploads, and a SQL-backed session store. Every fix got verified live before being called done, then locked in as one of 149 passing tests. Along the way, express-test grew from a chat demo into a live documentation site, catching stale docs and gotchas that reading alone would've missed.

BoxExpress brings Express.js-style HTTP endpoints to BoxLang using the JDK's built-in HTTP server. It supports routing, middleware, sub-routers, static files, and view rendering—without requiring a servlet container.