Can't help myself now..... Firstly I would like to express my absolute content with Coldfusion, its capabilities and its functionality and having been fortunate to work with other languages I much prefer CF over the others despite the additional overhead in software expenses. Now............. Having been a member of this list for a number of yrs now it amazes me that every time something pops up about the lack of CF developers and such that it becomes panic stations about the longevity of Coldfusion. Did it ever occur to those people that good CF developers are hard to come by because they are working for the corporates and such or they are running their own operations and aren't freelancing? I recently had the opportunity to be working with a company that got an applicant for a cf role. We asked the candidate to submit some code examples and it pretty much looked like PHP code that was converted to CF. This tells me that because of the opportunity existing for good CF developers that developers are trying to extend their skills into the CF area. And really if you want to start poking holes, should we start a thread about "Is .Net on its way out due to security concerns for Windows?". I mean really, that's what it comes down to. Every language has its down falls. Unfortunately Coldfusion has the one everyone moans about, its cost. Many people have pointed out that it is only really an initial cost and the cost is quickly recouped because of the speed in which you can develop Coldfusion applications with and its integrated feature set. I guess to answer the question "why did no one tell me?" is because its not. If you had of read the comments people are posting they're saying the exact opposite and that it shouldnt be on that list. Anywhoo I know on my head stone it will say <CFRIP /> Steve
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Simon Haddon Sent: Wednesday, 30 May 2007 10:15 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [cfaussie] Re: Coldfuson is dead - why did no one tell me My comments are intermixed below On 30/05/07, schlub <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I know it's dangerous to say this in this forum, but I would have to agree that CF is a dying (though not dead) language based on my own experiences with the CF industry. The fact is that teaching institutions (Universities, TAFE etc) are churning out java / php / asp.net developers' at large rate. No one I have met has learnt CF unless the company they were working for was already using it. This has created a shortage of developers, especially in Perth. Yes I agree. There are a shortage of CF developers. There are also a shortage of all developers at the moment. To say CF is dying would indicate that Adobe don't want to invest in it any more. As for learning CF. Most ppl learn on the job as it takes only a short time to learn the language. The company I work for has many old CF projects and a few current ones being finished off, and I have had the misfortune of working with this code as much of it is largely procedural / mode based without any inkling of functions / methods / objects (CFC's are a much spoken of hidden treasure). Once these projects are finished we will probably never start a new CF project and instead use ASP.NET or PHP. The reasons? Financial costs, personnel, and portability. It sound like you have a distast for CF anyway. Some ppl like it others don't. That is fine and each to their own. Saying you would use ASP.NET or PHP over CF again sounds like a personal tast not an indication the CF is dying. Interesting you mention portablilty. Since when is ASP.NET portable. Since when is PHP portable between different databases? I would say that CF is the most portable language out of the lot. Being Java under the hood it makes it portable and distributable in a variety of formats. The cost of CF Server is prohibitively expensive when you compare it to IIS or PHP (both free). The IDE is also not free, and let's face it, Dreamweaver or Homesite are pretty average. That's not to say we don't mind paying for good products, but the advantages of CF Server and the benefits of upgrading just aren't tangible enough. I don't understand the comparson between CF and IIS. IIS can be compared to Apache but not CF. You can compare CF to any other application server you like but IIS is a web server. The IDE for CF that is mostly used for CF is now Eclipse. It is free and very good. Link it in with CFEclipse, FusionDebug, Mylar, etc and you have an integrated IDE for free. Most ppl agree the Dreamweaver and Homesite are pretty average although a few ppl I know swear by Homesite CF developers are quite simply impossible to come by - well at least with any amount of experience. It's easy to find a competent developer, but then you have to go through the time and expense of training them in CF. If the industry is only churning out .net or php developers then that's what we have to work with. You comment about developers is true of any language. Nothing new here. We have attempted to outsource to contractors in the eastern states with appalling results - we were jerked around by two separate contractors; one who assured us they were working on the system only to vanish (literally), and the second came back several weeks after the briefing to say they would be too busy for the next four months! Suffice to say we will only be using local resources from now on. We didn't lose any money, but we did lose 2 months development time and ended up with a peeved customer. This sounds like a problem with your outsourcing arrangements and not a fault of the language. Portability speaks for itself... many (all?) hosting companies have IIS or PHP servers, but the number of them that support CF is dwindling. The number of companies supporting or developing in CF is also dwindling. If our customers want to take their website to someone else, they will be severely restricted in where they can go - some may see this as a good thing, but we don't believe in making ourselves indispensable to the detriment of the client. It's the same deal with ASP (not ASP.NET) - a lot of companies simply aren't supporting it anymore. Where do you get you figure from? Or don't you have any. ASP.nET is well supported and so is PHP, CF and most other languages around. I have no problems finding a good company that does CF hosting. I would also suggest that most clients that need a website also need their own server unless you are talking about tiny sites. If you need your own server then it doesn't matter what you put on it. CF has a lot of nice features, but discovering them can be a painful process. Maybe so. That is what the different conference, news groups, documentation, books , etc are for. Anyway, these are just my experiences - I expect to get some flames for this... :) This is not considered a flam response. I am just replying with my equally valid opinions on a language that has and does continue to serve my company well. schlub Cheers, Simon --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "cfaussie" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
