[thelist] Cold Fusion

Adrian Gonzales adrian at clearspanmedia.com
Fri May 14 13:43:35 CDT 2004


<snip>
This is just a general post to those of you out there employing a CF
solution. What do you like about it? Hate about it? Do you think the
costs justify the benefits? etc.
</snip>

My take on other peoples issues with CF:

Expense:
I don't know about your clients, but most of mine don't run their own
servers. So you get hosting packages anyway. Those support php/cf/asp
whatever... and you don't have to buy the server anyway. So there is no
expense. For development, you can just use the trial version of it and
when it expires, you get a full featured development version. So again,
no expense.

Capabilities:
CF can do most anything else any other language can do. Yep. You can
expand cold fusion with C++ and Java extensions to do anything those
languages can do. As far as object oriented programming, cf can now do
that with CFC's. And they work with SOAP web services too. You can
create user defined functions in a script environment. And it's all just
as open source as everything else.

Performance:
There were pretty big performance issues in the past. But from what I've
seen/read those are gone now. CF does run better than PHP on a Windows
platform. And it runs good on Linux. In fact, I've seen reports that it
runs better on Linux.

Proprietary:
Unless you are an open source evangelist, proprietary doesn't mean crap
when you are just a web designer. Of those who use PHP, how many
actually go in and write their own code into the server and then
recompile it? Not too many. So who cares if you get to compile it your
self? Or that you have the source code?

No Strong Dev Community:
That's kind of a self fulfilling prophesy. There doesn't seem to be a
strong dev community cause every one says there isn't. True, the
community is not as large as PHP's, but it is significant enough that
you can get help, tutorials and pre-made code. You just have to find out
where. One good thing about the CF community is that you don't seem to
get the elitist attitude that you get in other communities. Questions,
links to communities, just ask me :D

Platform Compatability:
True, PHP and Perl can run on just about anything that can compile. CF
isnt that lucky. It used to be limited to Windows, but not anymore. CF
can now run on Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP_UX, Mac OSX, and AIX. So,
just about everything on the web server market.


Advantages of CF

Easy to use/learn:
CF is freaking easy. It's simple to learn to do basic things, and it's
not harder to learn to do more. I taught myself most of CF in about 2
weeks. User authentication, content management, everything.

Speed of Development
Because I can do things in CF with a 3rd of the code it takes in PHP, I
can work faster. Working faster means I get projects done quicker. That
means more money. And, when it comes time to debug, I've got less to dig
through.

Error Reporting/Catching
PHP is crap for error reporting. Cold Fusion does a great job of telling
you exactly what went wrong where. And it also has built in functions to
catch/test errors. The CF Server also does a great job of logging them.
You can even set a time limit, and if a page takes longer than that to
process, it logs it and all the info. You can use that to find
bottlenecks in your applications.

Database Abstraction/Compatibility:
In php, and as far as I know, perl, you have to use code specific to
what type of database you want to use. And if you want to change that at
some point, you have to recode everything that has to do with the DB. In
CF, you can switch to any type of database without changing code
(provided you aren't using incompatible SQL statements). So when I was
starting out, I all of my sites ran out of Access databases. But then I
switched to MSSQL and I didn't have to change any code. Then I switched
to MySQL and still no change. CF is also natively compatible with tons
of different DB systems, from MSSQL, MySQL, Access, Sybase, Foxpro,
Oracle, ODBC, just about anything.

Dreamweaver:
Dreamweaver works awesome with CF. It works really good. Whether you use
the design view or the code view. It just streamlines so many things.
It's as good, if not better, than any IDE for php.

Encryption:
You can encrypt you pages and run them like that. So you can protect
your code. It's built in to CF, so you don't have to go and buy/set up
something like Zend. And as far as I know, you don't have any
performance hit. Just beware; there is no (legal) decryption process.


Disadvantages of CF

Expensive:
I know... its kinda contradictory, but if you are running your own
server, it is expensive.

Datasources:
In order to use a database, it has to be set up with the CF server. All
you have to do is just tell it where it is and the username/password.
Small price to pay for the abstraction.

Wow... there might be more disadvantages, but I cant think of any. 


Adrian Gonzales Jr.
Creative Director
Clear Span Media
713.310.7990
clearspanmedia.com



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