>their lack of understanding that CF even still exists
Perhaps they should have a better understand of the industry before
providing advice. If they don't even know the top technologies being
used, they really have no idea what they're talking about. Ask them
about Scala and see if they know it. I bet they don't.
>CF was an interpreted language
I only appears to be interpreted to make it easier for you as a
developer. CF runs on top of Java so in the end of the day it's actually
compiled and has those benefits - like trusted cache.
>How do you explain to someone the technical idea behind something like CF
It's a application server (coldfusion) and language (cfml) that runs on
top of a JEE (Adobe) or .NET server (aka Bluedragon). It is primary
known to be a tag based language, but now (since cf9) has complete
scripting support. It using ehcache for Caching, hibernate for ORM and
blazeds for AMF support. It handles some of the biggest applications on
the web and has done so for around 15 years.
People use it because it makes things easier like db connections,
consuming webservices and communicating with flex. It doesn't force a
design pattern like Rails (ActiveRecord) and there several frameworks
and open source resources for the language (riaforge.org)
PHP has several good points as well. But it's important to realize that
every language has their good and bad points. The key factor that
determines the success or failure of a project is the underlining
business strategy, the architecture of the project and the quality of
the developers. MySpace was a good idea but failed in the development.
Twitter is having similar problems. The choice of language is important
but it sounds like they prefer using PHP for everything which tells me
they're a one tool shop. The top developers are ploygots, they know
several languages and chose the right tool for the job.
John
ma...@fusionlink.com
twitter: john_mason_
On 7/9/10 11:48 AM, Derrick Peavy wrote:
I know this is kind of long and winding, but I'd love some feedback.
------------
Starting a project.
And, as I've discussed my coding abilities with people I meet they are
continuously giving me looks of bewildering and beguiling amusement.
Not talking about any Dick and Jane. I'm talking about folks from the
ATDC, other entrepreneurs, coders.
Whenever I say that I use CF, they act like someone just stepped out
from the stone age. And, I don't care - that's their problem. I make
money from my skills and can handle 500k page views a day without
breaking a sweat in my applications and sleep well knowing I have no
errors. But, their lack of understanding that CF even still exists
baffles me. It seems that people believe that the only web language
that exists now is PHP and possibly, Ruby (ergo, PHP). (Hey, Bank of
America is running CF. Maybe that's not a selling point?)
But on this new project, the folks say we need to do it in PHP so that
it can be sold off if the project works. Ok. Fine, I get that - I
really, really do and I'm actually in favor of it because I don't want
a pissing contest at that future point. But I'm not coding it in PHP.
No such fracking way. I'll help, offer guidance on DB design, help you
translate CF code to PHP if you want. Whatever.
And yet, these people keep saying, "Hey, it's easier for you to learn
PHP if you know CF, than for me to learn CF as a PHP developer." That
makes no sense to me.
On one code example (in PHP), the database connection was established
on line 13 in the file >>>> $con = mysql_connect(db/id/pw) >>>> and
then the connection was not closed until line 92 >>>>
mysql_close($con); >>>>>>
Within those 80 lines of code, they did 2 http calls to external web
services, created two arrays, threw in 40 lines of comments and then
somewhere in the bottom, finally made a SQL statement.
WT-Flying-Frack????
Is this what people accept? Granted, this was by someone who
admittedly said, they were a horrible developer - but then in the same
breath asked me why this would be a problem and I kind of stood there
looking like I'd been hit by a bat.
I've never been shy about not being a university trained developer.
But I've worked with database design since 1993, and with CF for over
12 years. So, hey, cut me some slack. I know I can't give you the
lingo about why an 80 line database connection is bad in pure
technical terms, but I damn well know that the faster, cleaner,
shorter you make your database calls, the better off you are for so
many reasons.
So, here's the question(s).
How do you explain to someone the basic core ideas behind CF and PHP.
PHP is an Apache module. CF runs on a java servlet or on Jrun, Tomcat,
etc. I'm honestly not the best to explain it. But I've seen the
performance side, and it's good. And I've seen the code bloat in PHP
files and it's bad. Yeah, I know anyone in any language can write bad
code. But damn if PHP doesn't seem to be full of it.
An ATDC person asked me if CF was an interpreted language. I said yes.
And then he acted as if the argument was done because so is PHP. And
so, that means what?... Therefore the two are the same and equal?
Ergo, you go open source because everything thinks thats best? Bad
argument.
How do you explain to someone the technical idea behind something like
CF?
How do you explain that even in writing a PHP page that no one but you
will ever use, that you don't do an 80 line open database connection
call unless it's 80 lines of SQL and then, that's a whole other issue?
_____________________
Derrick Peavy
derr...@derrickpeavy.com
404-786-5036
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs
________________________
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