Amy wrote: > I don't remember why, when I'd never had PHP installed on my machine, > I knew that the place to start out with PHP was to install WAMP. It > was probably one of those random facts I'd filed away when I didn't > need to care for when I did. I suspect I'm not uncommon in knowing > that that's where you go when you want to set up PHP painlessly on > your machine. In that case, I am the anomaly. Because this thread is the first I've heard of WAMP. Granted I don't normally travel in PHP Developer circles, but neither (I suspect) would most newbies to the technology.
> An important difference between ColdFusion and php, as you rightly > pointed out, is that php is installed on the server only--you don't > need any special software to write php code, I'm sorry if I communicated this; as it is completely untrue and not something I intended to say. ColdFusion code (CFML) can be written in any text editor, including notepad if you really wanted to. > and you don't need any > background knowledge other than what you need for any other web > technoloty. > I don't know much about ColdFusion, but I do know that > the pages are compiled, so I wouldn't be able to just walk in and use > CF without at least figuring out how to go from source code to > compiled whatever. You're understanding is incomplete. ColdFusion is a server side technology. Pages are compiled on the fly by the server and cached in memory. The developer has to do nothing.special other than write CFML in their HTML pages and give them a 'cfm' extension. Is PHP any different? As far as I understand, it is not. > There are probably several other things like that > that you need to learn in CF before you can actually become > productive, so it's not just installation time, it's that whole other > mass of "stuff" you need to know before you can use CF. > I would argue that this is not unique to CF. Despite your earlier claim that anyone who knows "web technology" can start doing PHP immediately, I doubt an HTML / CSS / Designer person w/ no programming knowledge / experience would be able to pick it up and go. There will be a learning curve. In that respect, there is no difference between CF and PHP. (or .NET, Java, Ruby, Python, etc... ) -- Jeffry Houser, Technical Entrepreneur Adobe Community Expert: http://tinyurl.com/684b5h http://www.twitter.com/reboog711 | Phone: 203-379-0773 -- Easy to use Interface Components for Flex Developers http://www.flextras.com?c=104 -- http://www.theflexshow.com http://www.jeffryhouser.com -- Part of the DotComIt Brain Trust
