concerned. Many larger clients (my company included) seem to be in
holding pattern with CF 4.5 while most smaller shops seem to be
upgrading at least to 5 if not MX.
Some comments:
1) Most hosts that actually care about CF have upgraded to MX (although
many still offer 5 as well). There were a LOT of hosts a few years ago
that lept into CF hosting (badly) and simply never bothered supporting
it properly - so they're still sitting on CF 4.5 because they bought it.
But there are a lot of hosts that spend the effort and do quality CF
hosting - and all of them are using modern versions.
2) A few years ago there were only a very few places to talk CF - CFTalk
being the premier place. CFTalk has diversified itself (there are now
more than a dozen separate groups at House of Fusion) and many other
places have risen up: the official Macromedia Forums have taken a turn
for the better (and are very active), alt.comp.lang.coldfusion is
moderately active and there are no less than several dozen web-site
specific forums enjoying active use on CF. In short the user base has
grown and the number of places to talk has grown - so everything's just
evening out.
3) The big reason for lukewarm acceptance of CF that I think you're
missing is that both MS and Sun have been putting tremendous muscle into
the exact same market space: ASP (and .NET) and JSP (and J2EE) are
eating up huge chucks of market share. The fact that CF is still alive
and kicking (and gaining customers) is a testament to it: in the face of
these giant competitors it's actually doing rather well. In fact it's
taking a "join 'em" attitude and actively supporting its competition -
making it a more attractive choice to those on the fence.
4) I'm not sure how you could argue about the pricing of MX - it's
comparable to CF 4.5 and significantly cheaper than most enterprise
application servers. It's also the most complete solution out of the
box by far - all told it's a steal.
5) For my part MX offers a huge truckload of "what we need". From the
advocacy side the simple fact that it's certified J2EE makes selling it
easier. From the technical side this opens up tremendous flexibility
(CF supports more extension standards than any other option hands down).
>From a language standpoint CFCs, while still somewhat immature (but
improve greatly in 6.1) are fantastic as are the improvements to UDFs
(CFML-based functions answer pretty much all the complaints about UDFs
in 5.0). There are also countless less obvious improvements in the
language (thread-safe shared scopes being one of my favorites). Lastly
if performance is an issue then MX is a huge boon: the performance
enhancement is so great in some applications that you may be able to
extend hardware life significantly simply by upgrading from 4.5 or 5 to
MX 6.1.
Jim Davis
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Baker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 10:32 PM
To: CF-Talk
Subject: OT - Some Catch Up on CF Migration?
I have been distracted from spending much time keeping up with CF within
the last couple of years. We upgraded to 5.0 and then I disappeared. I
now
find myself with a huge void in knowledge of releases beyond 5.0.
(Actually
a void of just how productive, i.e., functionality versus problems, 5.0
is)
Furthermore, it appears that a sizeable number of hosting services
remained
at 4.5.1. Assuming that hosting services are driven by their customers
desires, this makes a good case that a lot of developers didn't see
enough
value in anything beyond 4.5.1 to push for the later versions/releases.
One other observation is that CFTALK seems to be less active than it
used
to be. That could be for several reasons, including that 1. 4.5.1 is a
more
mature and sound product now, eliminating a lot of potential
problems/questions. 2. If the users are in fact staying with 4.5.1 then
those same users are more experience and naturally have few questions.
3.
Fewer people are starting to use CF?
I know that those, whose business depends on selling new
versions/releases,
have to pitch improvements and advantages. But, it would appear the
market
place is at best luke warm to recent and current CF Migration.
I assuming that the reasons are:
1. To many problems?
2. Benefits gained with newer products couldn't justify the prices?
3. Or, possible something I am missing?
My own observation, as shallow as it may be, is that the MX really
doesn't
offer much of what we need, and the price is too high. But, I don't know
what I don't know. That is why I am asking.
Anyone care to comment?
Thanks,
Nick
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