Why ColdFusion

[savantcreative]

Why do so many programmers hate ColdFusion. I am thinking of learning it because it saves a lot of time.
Thanks

[Stooshie]

It doesn't do anything more than php(arguably less), there is not quite the same support, there is much more in the way of frameworks etc for php and php costs nothing.

Anything else anyone wants to add?

[savantcreative]

Originally Posted by Stooshie

It doesn't do anything more than php(arguably less), there is not quite the same support, there is much more in the way of frameworks etc for php and php costs nothing.

Anything else anyone wants to add?

Do you think that CF is quicker and easier to use?
Thanks

[oracleguy]

Not anymore. Back in the late 90s it was better than competing server side languages but these days it isn't. You can still certainly use it but a lot of programmers dislike the tag style syntax. It is a neat idea in theory but doing advanced programming with it can be cumbersome. However for inexperienced programmers coming from HTML, it can make a lot of sense and be easier than learning a C style language like PHP.

However it is still being used, the issue if it is easier or not really depends on the programmer. If you have a C style syntax background, PHP is going to be much easier to work in than CF.

[savantcreative]

Thanks for your reply. I am a bit uneasy at having to learn PHP because I am primarily a designer and was attracted to CF because of the tags. Your reply makes me think that I should just get over it and learn PHP. I have started doing a site using Drupal which has forced me into the PHP thing.

One more question-Why was it better in the late 90's. Was PHP not as good?

Best regards-

[whizard]

PHP is a lot better than it used to be. PHP 3 was released in 1998, I think, and from there it has continued to get better and better. PHP 4 introduced OOP elements.

Dan

[nikos101]

However if you are into flex I think there are advantages if you use CF due to seamless integration.

[Gjslick]

I know this thread is mad old, but for anyone else out there reading this, ColdFusion actually is a great web scripting language to learn. And I'll give ya a few reasons why!

#1, its easy. The whole point of the language was to make development quick, easy, and straightforward. No having to learn how to connect to databases, no having to learn strange syntax that would look like gibberish to anyone who hasn't programmed before, etc.

#2, its tag based. HTML is tag based. Your CF tags fit right in with your HTML tags, and you can also maintain correct indentation and code format in your files, unlike php and asp. No having to open php tags and echo out certain parts of your code or build HTML strings with a mix of HTML tags and php script when creating say, the options in an HTML select box. ColdFusion fits seemlessly.

Also, the tags are straightforward, and common things like looping out query results from a database are as simple as <cfloop query="myQuery">...</cfloop> rather than some of the more complex code I've seen to read and output results from a database query in other languages.

#3, it has come a long way since the early days. You can now create native ColdFusion objects (ColdFusion components), implement object oriented design patterns (if you so choose), and there is a tag or function for pretty much everything you would ever want to do on a web server. Some of these even include transferring files between servers using FTP (or SFTP), creating flash animated charts based on some data that you have, and editing images all directly from your .cfm files. The best part is, these things take a minimal amount of coding on your part (basically, you just specify what you want, and ColdFusion does the rest).

#4, If that is not enough for you, most people don't realize that ColdFusion is built on Java, which means that you can instantiate any Java class that is registered with the server's JVM.

You like using Java's Vector class for your arrays instead of using ColdFusion's (for whatever reason), go right ahead!

Want to use a non-standard library for a particular function? You can do that as well. I wrote an application once that built an excel file with all the bells and whistles, calculations, and other things that excel provides (that cannot be created with the usual HTML table creation method) using Apache's POI HSSF library that I installed right on my server's JVM, and instantiated in a ColdFusion page.


ColdFusion may not be quite as fast as php, but as far as ease of learning/use, development time, and the power and extensibility of Java, you really can't beat it. I have programmed in php, asp, and asp.net, and ColdFusion is by far my favorite.

[Gjslick]

Whoops, forgot that you can also now leverage .NET objects with ColdFusion 8 as well

[savantcreative]

How do you recommend learning CF? What about what you can do with it?
Thanks so much-

[oracleguy]

Is there a free version of ColdFusion server? I know there is of course the per-server licenses you can buy and the last time I used it they were quite expensive.

[Gjslick]

Oracleguy, there actually is a free ColdFusion server! It's called Railo (not made by Adobe by the way). It does not support absolutely everything that the Adobe CF server does (I do agree that licenses are expensive), but I scanned through the list of tags that were not supported by Railo, and there is really only one tag that in my 8 years of CF development that I would miss (which is the built-in AJAX interface that allows you to call component methods directly from your JavaScript code, so worst comes to worst, you'd just have to write your AJAX functionality like everybody else does ). And although I have Adobe's ColdFusion server installed on my web server, a friend of mine has been using Railo's server for his ColdFusion development and deployment and he has had no problems at all. http://www.railo-technologies.com

Savantcreative, you can do pretty much anything with ColdFusion that you can do with other languages, and a whole lot more. If you want to learn, just look up some tutorial websites on google, there's a ton! Also, learning ColdFusion is (in my opinion) easier than other languages, but all web scription languages follow pretty much the same general concept and when you really learn one, its pretty much only a matter of syntax to learn another down the road if you so choose. Good luck and post anything in this forum if you're having any trouble and I'll be happy to help you out!