<cf_boss_person>
but .. but ColdFusion costs money and PHP is free! We don't want to
waste money.
</cf_boss_person>
*smirk*
I feel your pain Mike. I'm busying myself with learning PHP right now and
I'm just shocked by how overly complicated some simple tasks can be.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Haggerty Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Community" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 4:48 PM
Subject: Coldfusion is King
> Alright, I am letting off a little steam here. It has been a long week,
and
> Friday is still hours away.
>
> Coldfusion is king among dynamic Web technologies. Period. It is easy to
use
> and does not require you to build an API every time you want to do
> something. I have known this for a long time, but sometimes I am forced to
> prove this fact via a practical demonstration (in much the same way as a
> gibbering idiot sometimes proves he cannot pound railroad spikes into
> concrete walls with his own forehead).
>
> I have a project where we need a low-cost data feed technology to
distribute
> to regional offices. What will happen is the contents of a database will
be
> thrown into a WDDX packet, which will be downloaded via a Web server to
the
> central office. The data can be anything, but the transport protocol must
be
> http. And the technology must already be installed or else freely
available,
> meaning we can will use PHP, Perl or ASP.
>
> So I get to learn how to automatically post variables to a Web server in
PHP
> and return the content.
>
> To do the following in CF:
>
> <cfset login = structNew()>
> <cfset login.name = "someuser">
> <cfset login.pass = "somepass">
> <cfset login.call = "somecall">
> <cfwddx input="#login#" output="WXDDlogin" action="CFML2WDDX">
> <cfhttp url="http://www.somewhere.org/wddx_output.cfm"; method="POST"
> resolveurl="true" throwonerror="no">
> <cfhttpparam name="login" value="#WXDDlogin#" type="FORMFIELD">
> </cfhttp>
> <cfwddx input="#cfhttp.fileContent#" output="data" action="WDDX2CFML">
>
> ...is insanely difficult to do in PHP.
>
> First off, their file system functions are restricted to local operations,
> meaning you have to connect to their server via a socket connection. Once
> that connection is open, you have to write the F***ING headers yourself to
> GET and POST data, which is not easy considering you have to write one for
> each and every piece of data you wish to post. The resulting content is
not
> a WDDX packet, it is a raw HTTP packet which you then get to strip via
regex
> functions. Then, if you are lucky and everything worked the way it was
> supposed to, you have a WDDX packet you can deserialize and start using.
If
> you are unlucky and something goes wrong, poor you because the debug
> information is sparse at best.
>
> Now, this would not be such a big deal were it not for the nearly complete
> lack of information on how to do this. In the time it has taken me to
figure
> out the steps in the code I could have rewritten the Bible. I have endured
> millions of pop-up ads going through 'tutorial' sites for info on how to
> make this work. I have posted dozens of questions to PHP lists and for
each
> one received at least 10 responses from people who either didn't
understand
> the question or think asking 'Why would you want to do that?' is an
answer.
>
> I could go on, but the problem is now solved and the data client is now in
> place. At least I won't have to learn how to do this again. I built out
all
> the functions into a class library, and now have the equivalent of CFHTTP
in
> PHP to use on further development.
>
> It only took me about a week to complete a simple task that would have
taken
> 15 minutes to set up in CF.
>
> Praise the king.
>
> M
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