Waste? Pablo
-----Original Message----- From: Todd [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 6:05 PM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: Coldfusion is King <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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
