> So I'm gettin' ready for Christmas breakfast with my family, > when my Aunt, who works as a section chief managing programs > for the travel division at the IRS, launches at me about how > bad CF sucks. She knows how much I love CF and is aware of > the things I build with it. > > I'm kinda shocked, didn't expect it. Then she says she's > working with a CF application that's throwing all these > errors. She can't stand how bad it sucks. What shocked me the > most was that my aunt, who I look up to so much, can be so > ignorant of basic progamming principles. My first reaction > was to just tell her ANYthing can be written poorly by a > *hitty programmer. .net, PHP, etc. She just shook her head. I > couldn't get TOO ugly because we were literally at the table > gettin' ready to eat. lol! It's like, how do you even START > with someone displaying this kinda lack of understanding??? > > I gave her a break for a while and decided to take a > different approach. I sat down with her. She started saying > CF sucks. It just sucks! I can't believe you like it. with a > calm voice I said, Aunt Laura, does Java suck? She said no! I > said well, CF is Java! It compiles to Java! If you have a > crappy programmer writing the app, you're gonna have lotsa > bugs. I was gonna get into the fact that she shouldnt even be > SEEING errors. I mean, she's seeing the standard CF errors. > > That's where it ended. Dunno if I got it thru her thick head > - I doubt it. But at least she knows what's running behind CF > anyway.
If her only experience with CF is bad, it's perfectly reasonable to expect her to dislike it. And, frankly, the fact that CF compiles to Java is irrelevant - Java could be great, and CF could suck nonetheless. Finally, I'm sure that the people working on the CF application aren't willing to shoulder the blame themselves. So, you shouldn't expect her to change her mind just because you like it. Your best bet is to show her the successes that other government agencies have with CF. There are plenty of these. Many government agencies are in the process of migrating away from Windows to Unix for public web servers, and ..NET won't get you far in that case. Off the top of my head, here are a couple: Voice of America: http://www.voanews.com/ This site publishes news in 48 or so languages, including video feeds, podcasts, RSS, etc, and gets quite a lot of traffic. More about the site here: http://www.figleaf.com/Showcase/CaseStudies/voa.cfm National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/ Over 400 national parks provide their own custom content to the site. As a frequent visitor to national parks myself, this is one of my favorites. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/ Number-crunching fun with crime data. More about the site here: http://www.figleaf.com/Showcase/CaseStudies/USDOJ.cfm US Botanic Gardens: http://www.usbg.gov/education/events/Event-Listing-Date.cfm A public event registration system for seminars held there. More about the site here: http://www.figleaf.com/Showcase/CaseStudies/USBG.cfm Smithsonian American Art Museum: http://americanart.si.edu/ CF is used quite a bit by various Smithsonian museums, if I recall correctly. Naturally, I only listed public sites, but CF is very heavily (and very successfully) used for very large internal systems. If your aunt needs to be put in touch with some of the people behind these successful CF deployments, let me know off-list. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers in Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, or on-site at your location. Visit http://training.figleaf.com/ for more information! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-OT/message.cfm/messageid:182 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-OT/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.29
