I thought CF was dead....

[theEclipse]

As far back as 4 years ago, I saw coldfusion scripting as a dying style. However, it seems by some recent posts in other forums that coldfusion is very much alive and kicking!

I am a Perl/PHP programmer to the core....ever since I decided to go that route instead of coldfusion (~4 years ago...). Is there a benefit that I am not seeing to using coldfusion? Even better: is there a reason for me to learn how to code with it?

Robert Carpenter
Remember....eternity is much longer than this ~80 years we will spend roaming this earth.
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[r937]

is there a reason to learn it? sure

you can bid on more projects because you can do them with either language, depending on the client's platform



r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[pigsie]

Coldfusion is far from dead! It was re-written a few years ago in Java and now it has even more built in - PDF generation, Flash forms (

http://www.cfform.com/flashforms/gallery/53B844AC-4E22-1671-525CBDB11768303F/index.cfm),

Coldfusion components, built in webservices support, flash charts and graphs, sms gateways, multiple instances the list goes on:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/productinfo/features/

It can basically do everything Java can do (you can also directly use Java and call Java objects) and make use of the wealth of Java libraries available.

Is it worth you learning? Its always worth learning new languages. Try this - download the free developers edition and do something simple such as retrieve data from a database - compare that to how easy it is to doing the same in PHP and then judge for yourself.

 

[imstillatwork]

While php is extremely common for the distributable web applications / downloads / open source projects, etc.. ColdFusion is now, and has been very strong in the corporate scene, next to asp.net

with CFC's and other matured features, there isn't really anything that I ever find myself missing from coldfusion, from large sites to simple stuff.




Kevin

http://www.lot-o-nothin.com/cfml/

 

[theEclipse]

ooh...java. All my classes for the last 3 years have been in java. Cant say I like the way jsp works though....but that is handy. Is coldfusion based off of jsp now that it is written in java?



Robert Carpenter
Remember....eternity is much longer than this ~80 years we will spend roaming this earth.
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[pigsie]

Coldfusion is now very similar underneath to JSP, all coldfusion templates are compiled to servlets. However the syntax is lot more friendly, in the enterprise version you can have a jsp include a coldfusion template and vice versa, you can also share sessions between JSP apps.

 

[TamedTech]

From someone that is reasonably new to CF and WebDevelopment in generaly, I started learning PHP, and i've done a fair amount of Perl scripting in the past, and without a doubt i will always choose CF, its a very friendly code to work with.

I cant see that i'm ever going to require somthing that CF doesnt offer.

I've never worked with ASP so cant really pass judgment, but after looking at a fellow developers mail script written in ASP it seemed very long winded.

From what i read on the net, i think the general thoughts from developers was that untill maybe version 5 or 6 CF wasnt really a contender to the more popular Server Side languages.

But it wouldnt suprise me to see it start taking president over things like PHP in the years to come. The number or large corperate clients starting to use CF is growing on a daily basis, as the amount of support available from forum's such as this.

I cant see myself continuing to learn PHP, if i have customer that requires me to work on a project they already have underway then i have enough knowledge to be able to do so.

But from here on in I'm a big CF fan, the only way I could see myself going is perhaps into the ASP market.

Rob

 

[GUJUm0deL]

Compare the following and see which is easier to work with:

[u]THE FORM FOR PHP:[/u]
<form action="[b]action.php[/b]" method="post">
 <p>Your name: <input type="text" name="name" /></p>
 <p>Your age: <input type="text" name="age" /></p>
 <p><input type="submit" /></p>
</form>

[U]ACTION PAGE FOR PHP[/U]
Hi <?php echo $_POST['name']; ?>.
You are <?php echo $_POST['age']; ?> years old.

--------------------------------------------------

[u]THE FORM FOR CF:[/u]
<form action="[b]action.cfm[/b]" method="post">
 <p>Your name: <input type="text" name="name" /></p>
 <p>Your age: <input type="text" name="age" /></p>
 <p><input type="submit" /></p>
</form>

[u]THE ACTION PAGE FOR CF:[/u]
<!--- makes sure the user pressed the submit button and all fields are filled out --->
<cfif isdefined("FORM.submit") and len(FORM.name) GT 0 and len(FORM.age) GT 0>
  <cfoutput>
    Hi #FORM.name#.  You are #FORM.age# years old.
  </cfoutput>
</cfif>

--------------------------------------------------

[u]THE RESULE FOR BOTH:[/u]
Hi Joe. You are 22 years old.

Which is easier to code? And, easier to understand?

PHP has been popular because its opensource and its reletively free. CF is used in the banking industry, government and universities. Its very powerful and with the addition of JAVA it very flexible.

____________________________________
Just Imagine.

http://www.imajinarts.com

 

[ecobb]

ColdFusion has alway been strong, but for a long time there it wasn't popular because it wasn't free. By the time CF 5 came out, ColdFusion was the leading commercial (as in paid for) application server, and was used by over 75% of the Fortune 100. That information (and much more) comes from this site that Ben Forta put up just after CF 5 came out.

http://www.cffaq.com/faq.cfm?f=1

As short of a learning curve as there is for CF, I would say definitely learn it. At least the basics, even if you don't want to make a career out of it. The basic tag structure is so much like HTML you'll probably be able to open your first CF page and read through it and already have a good idea of what's going on.


Hope This Helps!

ECAR
ECAR Technologies

http://www.ecartech.com

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

 

[r937]

GUJUm0deL, in your sample code, how come you didn't test for the existence of the form variables in php like you did in cf? isn't that apples to oranges?

r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[GUJUm0deL]

r937, no.

____________________________________
Just Imagine.

http://www.imajinarts.com

 

[r937]

please be gentle on me, because i don't know php, but you didn't answer my question -- how come you don't have the same error checking in php?

r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[imstillatwork]

yes, in php you cannot refer to variables that do not exist, in both cases, the form variable should have been checked, the data should have been checked too, but that was beyond the point of that example I believe.

THE FORM FOR PHP:
<form action="action.php" method="post">
 <p>Your name: <input type="text" name="name" /></p>
 <p>Your age: <input type="text" name="age" /></p>
 <p><input type="submit" /></p>
</form>

ACTION PAGE FOR PHP
Hi <?php echo $_POST['name']; ?>.
You are <?php echo $_POST['age']; ?> years old.

--------------------------------------------------

THE FORM FOR CF:
<form action="action.cfm" method="post">
 <p>Your name: <input type="text" name="name" /></p>
 <p>Your age: <input type="text" name="age" /></p>
 <p><input type="submit" /></p>
</form>

THE ACTION PAGE FOR CF:
<!--- makes sure the user pressed the submit button and all fields are filled out --->
<cfoutput>
 Hi #FORM.name#.  
 You are #FORM.age# years old.
</cfoutput>


--------------------------------------------------

THE RESULE FOR BOTH:
Hi Joe. You are 22 years old.

now they are equal comparisons.

Kevin

http://www.lot-o-nothin.com/cfml/

 

[r937]

thanks kevin

it sure looked like originally the cf example was (intentionally?) way more verbose with the error checking than the php version

and when i asked "isn't that apples to oranges?" i was told "no"

so here i was thinking maybe php had all sorts of built in magic for gracefully handling missing form fields and such

glad to know it's just as clunky as cf in this instance

GUJUmOdeL, check your site, right now it's giving the following message:

Please be sure all Application.cfm settings are correct and that your datasource has been created.

Error Executing Database Query.

Data source not found.

looks like you might have forgotten some error checking, eh


;-)




r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[imstillatwork]

oooooooh.....

Kevin

http://www.lot-o-nothin.com/cfml/

 

[riluve]

In 1980 I heard that COBOL would be dead in a few years.

BIOS was designed in 1983 and was meant to last for 2-3 years . . .

Guess I wouldn't count anything out until.

 

[GUJUm0deL]

r937, sorry if I was a sounded rude, didn't mean to. My PHP skills are not that honed in. I used PHP in the begining when I started web development, and soon learned PHP was not for me, it was at that time my job started using CF, and I fell in love with it. CF is way easier to understand and use.

BTW, thanks for letting me know about the error, my hosting company has an issue where my datasource went missing, they'll have it fixed it soon enough.

I think, basically, a lot of us have given theEclipse valid reasons as to why CF is alive and kicking. BTW, theEclipse should also checkout macromedia (well, soon to be adobe) for latest cf features.

____________________________________
Just Imagine.

http://www.imajinarts.com

 

[TruthInSatire]

Coldfusion good - php bad.

Nah, i wouldn't go that far, they both have their uses. PHP has a low over head and pretty much garonteed hosting options. Good for freelance web developers.

Initial cost of CF is pretty high $1600 for starters. but it's so fast to write an application you make your money back in development time. That's assuming you're a hand coder and don't use junk like code charge or some lame framework. (That's my opinion framework lovers, no need to start a debate in this thread)

Granted you can find some pretty cheap CF hosting options also.

Rudy should post a complex query using CFQUERY so you can see the immedate difference in php to CF. If he does notice how he can format the query without having to create a variable or accounting for extra white space.

I've had my share of php, asp 2.0, asp.net (w/ vb.net and C#), CF, pearl.... I like CF



We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.

 

[jrottman]

Ecar took the words right out of my mouth.

Main reasons I love CF.
Rapid Rapid Rapid Development, ease of implementation, large corporation adoption, government adoption. Plus it is hella fun to code in.

Oh yeah and I prefer # to $

 

[r937]

a complex query in CF? search this forum for posts by me with the keyword CFQUERY -- there are dozens of examples

r937.com | rudy.ca