Alternatives to CF??? Ratings? 5

[paron]

I am investigating ways for my organization to put Web front-ends on Access Databases. ColdFusion looks like the front-runner, but who am I to say? I would appreciate any pros/cons anyone would like to share.

What flavor of CF do you use? UltraDev?

I am fairly familiar with Flash -- will that be any help at all?

Ron

 

[Arion23]

Just some personal opinion here (you may find it useful, you may not):

I've found ColdFusion extremely easy to use and understand so far, coming from an HTML background - the syntax/tags/functions etc are similar to the way HTML is structured.

I've barely touched ASP and have no PHP experience, but when I encountered ASP (this is prior to learning CF) I found the language very confusing and difficult to understand - people with Visual Basic backgrounds might find it very easy).

I use ColdFusion Studio to prepare my code, and occasionally use FrontPage 2000 to work on layouts.

I think the only major con in relation to CF vs others is the cost - the server installations of ASP and PHP are free whereas CF is quite expensive ($16,000 here in Australia).

As mentioned above, I find the major plus to be ease of use which can translate into quicker development cycles, and rapid development of applications.

I havn't gotten into the security or performance side of things as yet, so I won't even speculate on pros/cons there.

Hope this helps (at least a little bit

 

[CFDude]

I've been using CF for around 4 years and just starting working with ASP. They are both not that difficult -- I think CF is a lot easier to use, but I have a lot more experience with CF.

They are both great tools, but if you are more familiar with HTML and web page creation, CF will come more naturally to you. ASP is more script like and if you have more of a programming background, then ASP will be just as easy.

If you are fronting access databases, either one will do the job just as well.

CF has an upfront cost (1295.00 for the Pro version), but is definately worth it. Many will argue that ASP takes longer to develop, so you will recoup the cost very quickly. There is some truth to that.

Just so you know, Ultradev is just a web page editor with some database access tools that helps build an interface to the database -- you still need to be using ASP or Cold Fusion on the server. Flash is just a graphical interface and if you are doing database interaction, again, you may need to use CF or ASP in the backend. Since Macromedia owns both Flash and CF, there is some integration tools between the two.

PHP is another alternative, but in all honesty, found the syntax a little hard to grasp. I haven't really tested it much, but there are a lot of people staring to use it.

HTH,
Tim P.

 

[calista]

Hi, Paron!

CF is not nearly so expensive in the US. We purchased Cold Fusion Professional for Windows almost a year ago and it was about $1300. The full blown Enterprise edition was about $7000. The editor I have is Cold Fusion Studio. It about $700.

I had virtually no knowledge of HTML, and I have succeeded in building a fairly nifty intranet site with it. (Even if I do say so myself!) A lot of credit should go to the friendly folks in this forum who have been so helpful. I couldn't have done it without them.

You say you're familiar with Flash. Well, earlier this year the company that made Cold Fusion (Allaire) merged with Macromedia (who makes Flash). As you might expect, the newer versions of CF are quite friendly with the Macromedia products.

Anyway, here's a link to Macromedia's web site. You can download CF Server and any of the editors for a free 30 day trial. These are fully functional, they just die at the end of 30 days.

http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/

Have fun and good luck!
Calista :-X
Jedi Knight,
Champion of the Force

 

[paron]

Thank you both for your advice and opinions. Interesting that you both referred to background as an important determinant of preference -- mine is kind of ambidextrous; equally clumsy with either hand, you know? I fight as about a welterweight in both HTML and VisualBasic.

I think, given your opinions and my own research, that while VBScript/IIS is cheaper, and entirely possible, it may be analogous to using Notepad for HTML editing. You can do it, but you can't do it fast enough.

Thanks again,
Ron

 

[paron]

Correction: Thank you all. Thanks for the encouraging words, Calista!! Nice to hear from the "old heads" and "young lions" both.

Ron

 

[webron]

Some time ago, someone posted a message with an alternative to CF.
The only thing i can remember is, that it was a scottish company offering a cf-server lookalike, with all the functions of cf 4.5 at a fraction of the costs.

Anyone more information?

 

[CFHub]

Possibly you are thinking of Tagservlet? The J2EE (Java) app that uses "CFML" syntax to build server side Java?

It has been a while since I have played with it so these results may not be particularily current:

http://cfhub.com/tagservlet

I found it a little frustrating because it is only "like" CF, it is not 100% the same.

Perhaps the best thing is to grab a new copy from:

http://www.tagservlet.com

and try it yourself ;-)

 

[webron]

thanx.
downloading now.....

 

[moonriver]

My company uses CF, but we are forced to change all of our databases from Access to Oracle. It seems that Access may throw out garbage if several people try to access the database at the same time. Oracle does not have that problem and interfaces with CF very well. You might want to check that out more thoroughly.

 

[Arion23]

Hi moonriver,

Yah, access has some serious issues with multi-user access, including concurrency, security and reliability. As a single-user database for desktop apps, its useful as it is quite simple as far as database systems go.

I find it great to work with when prototyping some of my applications, but I then migrate the tables over to Oracle when moving into user testing and production.

 

[paron]

Well, so much for my hopes that CF would fix those issues with MSAccess.

Still, it is a very neat RAD tool, so now I am wondering -- does CF help port the front end over to the Web? Putting the back end into Oracle seems pretty straightforward.

Is Access a better RAD tool than CF? It must be, to justify the double effort of developing in Access and then again in CF, unless CF makes it really easy to port over.

 

[Arion23]

Hi Paron,

I'm not sure what you mean by your question "does CF help port the front end over to the Web?" - ColdFusion is basically the front-end AND the application.

If you wanted to use the frontends that you may have in your Access-based applications, you will need to look at the Visual Basic code and SQL, and re-code these into ColdFusion (or even start from scratch and go through the whole application development process again) - there really is no simple way of converting an Access-based application into ColdFusion (or any other web language).

I wouldn't say Access is a better RAD tool than ColdFusion (I wouldn't say Access is a RAD tool at all - Access is suited for simple desktop applications. ColdFusion is specifically designed for web-applications of any level of complexity.

"It must be, to justify the double effort of developing in Access and then again in CF, unless CF makes it really easy to port over."

Well, I'm not putting double effort in. I only use Access to set up tables in order to test my ColdFusion code - I don't develop in Access at all (may god have mercy on my soul if I did)

Something which may be confusing you is the terms database and application (or the way I am using these terms).

My definition of "database" is simply a collection of related data stored in tables, whereas "application" is the interface and functionality. I only ever use the "database" side of Access, never the "application". ColdFusion is the language that provides the "application".

I do hope that I have not confused things further for you - I've re-written this post a number of times now and this is as coherent as I get at the moment (it's about 1:30AM here in Australia, and the caffeine is starting to wear off).

 

[paron]

Yes, thanks, Arion23 -- that does clarify things. I probably would have deduced the answers or asked a better question, but it was about 7:30 AM here, and my caffeine hadn't kicked in yet! Doggone circadian rhythm isn't particularly helpful, but you were.

Thanks again,
Ron