Kris, Jeff said this better than I but I can't see how putting everything into Microsoft and .NET gives you "the ability to roll out our apps in multiple formats". CF is far more cross platform than .NET overall.
What intrigues me about many of the threads in recent weeks and months intimate that Macromedia's acquisition of Allaire has disadvantaged ColdFusion somehow (I know you are not saying that I'm just jumping on your thrust Kris). I worked for Allaire (and enjoyed it immensely) I was laid of by Macromedia so could have an axe to grind. Yet my feeling <going back to the main point of this thread> is this is a great time for CF and all of us who have CF expertise. And Macromedia are listening to us! Two things excite me in particular, the growing integration with Flash and the amount of marketing muscle being applied to CF by IBM. As always IMHO. Mike Brunt - CTO Webapper Services LLC http://www.webapper.com Downey CA Office 562.243.6255 "Making the NET Work" -----Original Message----- From: Kris Pilles [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 7:01 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: How Good is the Job Market for ColdFusion? I can just throw ColdFusion out the window we have a lot of applications that need to be converted so we will be using it for quite a while... What I envision is using CF for quick or small projects that have to much overhead... A great example is a project I am finishing up now... We need to write out a bunch of text files from records sets from oracle... A pain in the a** to do in ASP or .net but with CF it's a breeze. I would like to keep it around for things like that and any flash data work we do but outside of that I don't see it being a major part of any of our enterprise applications. As I said before personally I will ocntinue to use CF for my business and ecommerce sites. I love the product but I just think that the .NET stuff has the edge at this time... For Microsoft orgainzations that is... One decision my company just made is to give up on UNIX and oracle and switch enitrelly to micrososft world SQL server all NT servers and all NET development... The prinicipal is great 1 company 1 development platform 1 programming team that all knows the same stuff But having been at other 100% microsoft organizations.... I have seen what happens when you put all of your eggs in 1 basket. I think getting rid of Oracle on AIX & Linux is a big mistake for us... Especially in favor of NT based SQL server... Especially after we've already bought oracle and set it up and have it running without issue... But that's a separate issue. But the big decision maker was the ability to roll out our apps in multiple formats... If CF allowed up that then it would be a no brainer to stay with CF.. KP -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Whatcott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 9:48 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: How Good is the Job Market for ColdFusion? Sorry to that you see it that way. Perhaps we can change your mind. The combination of J2EE + CFMX gives you an environment that can scale across the full spectrum of projects, from the smallest web form to the biggest mission-critical enterprise application. And you also get true cross-platform deployment and industry-leading rich client technology that is light years ahead of anything else out there. We think the ColdFusion MX + J2EE application servers (like JRun!) combo delivers all the technology that an enterprise needs, and offers critical flexibility than you don't get going with a single vendor. Having said all that, we think .NET is important infrastructure technology and we will continue to offer products that integrate with and take advantage of it. Hence the COM and web services support in CFMX, the .NET support in Flash Remoting MX, etc. At the end of the day, we're not religious about this platform or that platform, we just want to pragmatically solve customer problems. We believe that as you really dig into the details, you'll find that continuing to have ColdFusion in your mix will pay off in the long run. Jeff W. -----Original Message----- From: Kris Pilles [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 8:51 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: How Good is the Job Market for ColdFusion? Interesting to find some of this out. We are in a position that I think many organizations are in. We've been priamrilly a CF house for well over 2 years and we purchased MX enterprise but have yet to install it because of the growing popularity of .NET . I really enjoy CF and love what I can do with it and how fast I can develop with it but... I think that our IT director along with a good part of me is feeling pressure to switch over to .NET entirely. The biggest reason is .NET's ability to allow us to develop for a multitude of enviroments... Thin client, clinet server, web based etc... This will allow our organization to have all of their programmers working on the same platform thus creating an internal community where everyone can help everyone else out and learn from each other.. While CF is a great product, it can not offer this type of standardization to us. I am a strong believer in CF and will continue to use it for development for my personal business sites as well as any development I contract but in a corporate enviroment where many different applications are being developed and supported, I have no solid reasons as to why we shouldn't switch to .NET KP -----Original Message----- From: Vernon Viehe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 7:25 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: How Good is the Job Market for ColdFusion? >The enterprise penetration of MX has been weak. MM would blame this on the marketplace, but I'm not sold on this. Server version upgrade cycles in the enterprise app-server space is around 12 months, according to those I've discussed it with. We're really only about halfway through the cycle at this time. The overall installed CF base is pretty healthy, and growing. Here's a partial list of existing CF sites we use for PR/marketing: http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/proven/ Even considering the upgrade cycle in the enterprise app-server world, the list of CFMX enterprise sites is growing every day. The following are a few of the CFMX sites recently sent to me: http://www.ecoprimalquest.com/ http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?countryid=19&languageid=1 http://www.panasonic.com.au/hometheatre http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/ (some CF, some dynamic Flash content, some just plain HTML) http://www.reservations.broadmoor.com We know a lot of enterprise-level customers have upgraded to CFMX and are in the upgrade cycle - but they don't always report back to us when they go live with CFMX, so feel free to send me sites that you know of too! In addition to this stuff, consider the ways Macromedia is expanding the CF market: *Ground-up rewrite in Java: This expands CF capabilities, as well as makes CF an option to the enterprise-level sites which want the benefits of deploying on a the Java platform and the rapid app dev (RAD) offered by CF. It also means current CF customers have a way to move up to the Java platform without requiring they abandon their existing apps (or their CF developers). Admittedly, this has been a challenging release of CF for some, but once the dust settles, CF and the CF community will enjoy this huge leap forward. *We're working to deliver the information developers need to help them be successful with ColdFusion and our other technology offerings: www.macromedia.com/desdev *We're tappiing into new markets for CF: -With Flash remoting, the HUGE Flash community is getting turned on to CF. While one can purchase Flash remoting for ASP, Flashers taking to CF readily because of it's shorter learning curve and RAD capabilities. -Dreamweaver users: OK, before you pile on me about this one, I'm not trying to debate the CFStudio/HS+ vs. Dreamweaver issue for CFers. Dreamweaver is ~80% of the HTML editor market, and these folks are moving into the dynamic application/web app development space in droves. Dreamweaver MX makes their entry into the CF arena a snap with its built in server behaviors that cover the most basic stuff, and CF's shorter learning curve and tagged based syntax makes CF a very attractive for these new application developers. *We've delivered innovative products that are more integrated and work more smoothly with each other than ever before, offering "one-stop" shopping for industry leading technologies. This also means that we can deliver well integrated technologies, and better information for those who are integrating these various technologies. But we've also worked to remain somewhat agnostic with many of these innovations; many (most) of these innovations integrate with 3rd party products/platforms. Individually, one may not be positioned to take advantage of everything we offer surrounding CF, but we see businesses moving into these areas as they begin to plan and implement new projects, and bring additional technologies & skills into their shops. It's been said Macromedia should concentrate on CF improvements and fixes and forget everything else, but our efforts across the board are not mutually exclusive. We've already released one CFMX updater, and another is fortcoming. Macromedia is fully behind ColdFusion and ColdFusion developers. Yes, there is definately room for improvement, as is evidenced by some of the more lively discussion on this list recently. But we do listen to and incorporate to the community's feedback, while we continue to innovate. Unfortunately, sometimes we can't talk about everything happening, even in the face of (emerging) competition. But that shouldn't be misread as an indication that nothing is happening behind the scenes. I personally think the economy has stifled some of the payoff from Macromedia's efforts, it's stifled just about everything involving economics! But eventually you will start to see these efforts start to pay off for ColdFusion and CF developers. Nay-sayers can say spout gloom and doom if they will, but CF is on the way up. We're just gettin' started! Vernon Viehe ColdFusion Community Manager Developer Relations Macromedia, Inc. Online diary: http://vvmx.blogspot.com/ -------------------- Macromedia DevCon 2002, October 27-30, Orlando, Florida Architecting a New Internet Experience Register today at www.macromedia.com/go/devcon2002 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_talk FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting.
