ColdFusion & CGI 1

[bizbul]

I am researching using ColdFusion in my business unit at work. I need to have some solid information and would appreciate anyone giving me websites or books to use for this. I'm going to be responsible for web development on our team and I want to switch everything over to ColdFusion and need all the right facts to convince them to do so. I also need to know if I can call a C program from ColdFusion or cgi code. Any help on this could help my company to start using ColdFusion for its web development. Thank You ahead of time for your help and inspiration.
Jennifer :->
jeperk@acxiom.com
or
bizbul@swbell.net

 

[GunJack]

For books, check out titles by Ben Forta. For websites, I would start with allaire.com. I think you'll find that CF is much easier to learn that Perl or PHP3 and has most everything built into the language where you have to add components to ASP to do basic things like e-mail and file transfers. I do both ASP and CF and I hate doing ASP because it takes more lines of code (IMO) to code things than in CF. To answer your question, you can call C programs from CF with the <cfobject> tag which requires they be compiled as a .com object or with CF 4.5's <cfexecute> command which is like running programs from a dos prompt.

Hope this helps,
GJ

 

[bizbul]

I appreciate this information. I've done some basic CF work, hitting a database with updates, inserts and basic sql statements, and I'm convinced this is the way I want to go since I'm going to be the one to do the web development. I love working with ColdFusion. When I see all of the trouble my friends go through trying to connect to a database with ASP, I just laugh. I can't imagine using anything else. I just need to be able to convince my Business Unit Leader that this is a great investment in the long run. If you have any sites that compare CF w/ ASP or especially CGI and Perl, I would appreciate knowing if it runs faster, better, any type of data I could use. I really appreciate you help and comments. Jennifer *:->*

 

[GunJack]

Hey Jennifer,

I don't know of any comparisons off-hand. I don't think that one or the other will necessarily be noticeably faster but I think the real difference will be in time it takes to code and debug. I usually quote hours for projects and then multiply by 1.5 to 2 for hours if they want it in ASP. I have years of experience in CF and less than a year in ASP so it may be that I just don't have the experience in ASP to code it as quickly but from what I've seen, I don't think that's the reason. I really believe the two downsides to ASP are the lack of built-in functionality and the extra lines of code for simple things like queries.

I'll ask a friend of mine who works in a mixed shop if he has any ASP/CF comparisons.

Good luck,
GJ

 

[bizbul]

I really appreciate you going the extra mile. Thanks for all of your help.
Jennifer

 

[GunJack]

My friend replied that he didn't have anything specific but to look around at CF sites as they tend to have some of that info.

Good luck, I remember what it was like trying to convince management of the values of CF. Now I'm on my own and don't have those problems

Let me know if you need any other help,
GJ