Nobody uses ColdFusion anymore

[Loathe]

In one sentence -- I do more in ColdFusion faster than my programming chums do with JSPs or PHP, and the code looks cleaner to boot.

As the above poster mentioned, there are oodles of features that come packed into ColdFusion. They make development faster, meaning I can spend more time fine-tuning my sites for my customers' specific needs.

Jeremy Geelan of CFDJ (http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/) wrote a solid article outlining far more eloquently than I the solid points of using ColdFusion. Gah, I wish I had a link to the article now -- I have the actual paper magazine at work (I'll see if I can dig it up tomorrow). The jist of it was that you'll make back all the money you spent on purchasing the server by cutting your development time.

CF is a RAD tool for Java web applications. It takes the best, most used functionality you'd want from your JSP and makes it easier for you to code. If CF doesn't have a tag for what you want, you can take advantage of the Java API at will. Build custom classes, custom tags, and whatever else you need to get the job done. In my experience as a CF programmer, I've never *had* to resort to such methods. ColdFusion out of the box does practically everything I need i to. Saves me time (not to mention headaches :)), and lets me spend more time tweaking the "web experience" aspect of the site rather than gritting my teeth debugging an app.

Thinking to web 2.0. How does PHP connect to a Flash Application? Most of the examples I see from the PHP world involve creating XML files, and passing them into the Flash application. How does ColdFusion do it? I just have Flash make a call to a function in my CFC that I've already written for my non-flash version. I don't even have to deal with converting my Query object to an Array. ColdFusion does that for me. Want to use Flex 2 with ColdFusion? No problem -- Works the same way. This is THE reason I love Adobe these days -- Everything works together seamlessly. I don't need to waste time searching online for solutions because Adobe's already built them and packaged them into the API.

It's well worth shelling out some dollars to streamline your development process and build better experiences for the customer. Especially if you are thinking of leveraging Adobe's near-monopoly on visually interesting content (Flash & Flex).

Excellent post. The RAD abilities of CF are often overlooked, as are the savings in development costs that this allows for.

[WebErika]

(To those critics on HoF safely nestled behind their anonymous posts - you've got nothing on the Linux/Mac/anti-Microsoft crowd when it comes to attacking the messenger. Please try to do better.)

I've been a member here for a while now, lurking in the shadows, it's a great site. Props to WebProWorld.

I'm also a member of HOF and have been for over 5 years now. I started with CF back in 1998 and adore it. It was quick and easy to get a handle on and I've written some great apps in it.

I don't do too much programming these days as my business has grown large enough to outsource most of it, I just wanted to login here and just clear up a small misconception or what seems like a misconception to me.

On the CF-Community HOF list, we aren't hiding.

In fact, if you join the mailing list, and choose to receive emails, you'll see all our names. Michael Dinowitz, Creator of the HOF, made it so the web version of the Community list was a bit more anonymous.

The Community list is your equivalent to a "water cooler gathering" where we all let our hair down and have a bit of fun. Discussing politics, movies, current events, programming languages, jobs etc is the norm for this particular list. So some of our "chatter" was perhaps a bit revealing and for professional reasons, we didn't want Google to get a hold of EVERYTHING we talk about especially matters of politics and rants about jobs.

We're actually a pretty good group and many of us have been around since the beginning.

As for CF, lately I notice it being used in more and more places, INCLUDING my online bank accounts. Two separate banks using CF that I know of. One of them: Bank of America. Now what they use between the login and the actual data, I haven't bothered to discover, but the mere fact they use CF at all was pretty cool.

I'm a lover of all languages. I don't ordinarily care what an app is written in, as long as it's written right, tight and works.

If we all spent more time on doing the best we can with our work instead of nit picking what others choose to use in their work, perhaps we'd all have more time to be friends?

:)

[CFMunster]

over and above the server licencing fees.. development fees for a project in cf average about 3x that of development fees for the same functionality in php or asp .net

I've seen many issues with sites coded in cf in regards to seo.

There are not a lot of cold fusion developers out there (relatively)

I have never seen anything to indicate that development times or fees would be far greater in CF than PHP/ASP.NET. I would love to hear more detail about that thought.

In terms of SEO issues, check out this thread from Ray Camden's blog:

working with SES URLs in CF

Regarding the cost of developers, it really depends on what you want. If you need to build a small-ish web site, any developer with a little experience can get it done in CF. If you want to build a large-scale business application, you'll need someone with relevant experience, knowledge of design patterns, best practice techniques- in short, you'll need a software engineer. Sure, that will cost you, just like it would cost you to hire an engineer that knows J2EE or C# business app development.

Lastly, the developer community isn't as big as Java, .NET, or PHP, but it is a big and growing community. What's more, Java developers can jump right in and learn CF with ease and still leverage all of their Java skills whenever they need to do something that CF doesn't do out of the box. .NET developers can use BlueDragon.NET and still leverage their .NET skills.

[CFMunster]

David,

Thanks for noting my response in your follow-up column. I did sign up in order to respond, but I didn't intend to remain semi-anonymous, I'm just lazy when it comes to filling out online registrations. I got that way after about the 800th registration form that I filled out during the dotcom boom. I have added more info to my profile.

I think your conclusions about CF are well thought-out but do not tell the whole story about the future. There are software-as-a-service providers out there using CF- Vurv www.vurv.com (formerly Recruitmax) is the biggest one I know of. That market will attract some CF development, but Java and .NET will dominate. Commercial Web services development will be similar. Embedded device software and packaged application development will be done in something other than CF.

CF will continue to have a strong following in the business application development market in corporate and government settings. It will attract a share of web site development, but it will continue to be a second choice to free tools like Ruby and PHP. And for my upset special of the week - CF will be very strong in the Rich Internet Application market because of its tight integration with Flex (and Flash generally).

Lastly, I appreciate your thoughts in the column. The Internet is a huge space now and there is room and need for a variety of tools and platforms from C++ to Zope and everything in between. I have done work in a variety of languages and can appreciate the strengths of all of them. (OK, I might have to medicate myself if I ever had to program in Perl again).

[king_nacho]

I like CF, i'v been using it sense 1997, it is a good language for a number of things.

However, given the cost of the app server it became an expensive thing to keep up with. At $6k per server, it was very difficult to convince clients to purchase the server and learn something new they had to maintain.

Most of them already had Windows servers that we could run ASP.NET on. I don't care for PHP, I'd rather have a product with commercial support behind it.

Of course my argument is based on one segment of the web app world. We were doing projects that we did not host. They were hosted by the client. Many of these projects involed multiple server configurations. The cost of the server software was a big deal, and the cost to maintain the servers was a big deal.

For developers that host the applications for their client, CF is a great way to go. Expects in CF are very good at maintaining the servers, and the code.

[cfrandy]

In terms of SEO issues, check out this thread from Ray Camden's blog:
working with SES URLs in CF

I do not think the post from Ray really shows any SEO issues. Ray shows a way that you can make SEO friendly URLs (which can be done in any language) if you do not have access to the web server Mod Rewite capabilities. I have always said you show me a php page/pages, I could create the same thing and and you could not tell a difference when the page is shown in the browser. If a programmer creates the page with plenty of url variables of course the search engines are going to have a problem with it, as with any language.

I have never seen any hardcore proof where it was Coldfusion causing the SEO issue, and not the programmers fault.

-Randy

[meddlingwithfire]

Jeremy Geelan of CFDJ (http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/) wrote a solid article outlining far more eloquently than I the solid points of using ColdFusion. Gah, I wish I had a link to the article now -- I have the actual paper magazine at work (I'll see if I can dig it up tomorrow). The jist of it was that you'll make back all the money you spent on purchasing the server by cutting your development time.

I was mistaken about the author. It was actually Simon Horwith (of the same magazine). And here's a link to the article!

http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/172573.htm

Another good read by the same author:

http://cfdj.sys-con.com/read/230497.htm