On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 8:45 PM, Irvin Gomez <[email protected]> wrote: > > The reason Coldfusion is dying a slow death has nothing to do with Coldfusion > itself or its capabilities (I'm a convert, remember). Coldfusion is fine. The > problem is one of perception: the overwhelming majority of people entering > the programming arena will - rightfully so - go with .Net or PHP instead of > Coldfusion. For a few very simple reasons: > > 1. They are more popular, especially PHP. > 2. Because they are more popular, the person feels that employment/income > opportunities will be better with those languages. > 3. The resources available to beginners are more numerous or simply visible > (PHP). > 4. For whatever the reason, Coldfusion is perceived as something of a > 'has-been' language. > > And, yes, you would not hire guys without great expertise. But that's not > what pays the bills at Adobe. It is the great 'unwashed masses' who will > ultimately dictate whether Coldfusion thrives or just continues on life > support until the current generation of diehards dies out. It is a reality. > 99% of the guys doing PHP are just WordPress hackers - but who cares? I wish > Coldfusion - as good as it is - could say the same. > > That's my perspective.
I don't know as much about the PHP world these days as I do .Net land, but I can assure you that the CF community runs veritable circles around .Net when it comes to blogs, mailinglists, Twitter, irc channels, etc. It is way easier to learn CF than C#/.Net. The reason that people do go out and learn .Net is that they want a job in that area. So to the extent that .Net has more new people learning it (which I assume is true but do not know), I can almost certainly assure you it is because the jobs are there. As far as I am aware, there has been no major decrease in the number of CF jobs (though I could be wrong). We'd all like to see a push from Adobe that helps market CF to companies around the globe but as it is, CF has a solid market niche that does not seem to be going away anytime soon. If people want to follow the jobs, they will to CF, just like to .Net though in fewer numbers. Then there is the other argument, about "zazz" and "excitement". Quite frankly, PHP is not exciting. It has been around the block for many a year. 99% of the guys doing PHP, as you say, may just be WordPress hackers...which means that they may be eaking out a living but not really producing anything of substance and certainly not rocking the world. There are a number of up and coming languages. Ruby, Scala, server side JS (Node and Backbone), maybe Clojure, sorta-kinda Python. Ruby, Scala and server side JS are doing cool, hip things. They ought to, they are young. That's why I'm also learning them. Some of them will gain more traction or lose some, settle in and be in the place that CF and .Net are in several years. New languages will appear and flourish and find their own niches. I don't know how long you've been working with computers, Irvin, but no language "wins". We develop and evolve. The problems we try to solve change. We figure out new ways of tackling old problems. Best practices come and go. Coldfusion is a solid and respected product. It continues to evolve. It won't be around forever, but then again, nothing will be. Continue to explore and learn, if you have jobs that don't need a specific tool, use the ones you love and get the job done quick. Then go out and learn some more and see what options you have for the next job. Theoretically, that's why people hire us, because we learn and think and adapt and figure out how to solve problems. So, with that in mind, put that thinking cap on apply a bit more broad minded look at the world around you and you might get a better appreciation of where you, CF and the big wide world of application development really stands. Cheers, Jud ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:348611 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
