IMHO, the biggest problems with CF are (1) it's not truly object-oriented,
and (2) as a tag-based language, it's difficult to make a clean separation
between presentation and business logic.
Yes, many things about the language make it easy to get a modest data-driven
site up quickly. Yes, JSP allows undisciplined developers to messily mingle
presentation and business logic. Nevertheless, my Java/JSP projects are
easier to manage because there's a cleaner separation between client- and
server-side code, and because we can design objects. It seems like anything
more than a very modest CF site requires tremendous human effort to prevent
things from turning into spaghetti. In my larger CF projects, i use a lot of
structs to encapsulate data, and a lot of "faceless" cfml files to
manipulate the structs. The availability of user-defined functions in CF 5.0
is a long-overdue feature, but cfml is still a highly procedural language.
Custom tags are a good alternative to <cfinclud>-ing logic modules, but
getting return values from tags is a pain, and deploying a CF site that uses
cusotom tags, especially in a shared-server environment, is another pain;
WAR-file deployment for Java/JSP apps is great.
The other boost for Java/JSP is the number of vendors of app-servers and
development tools. CF is a single-source solution. Allaire did an OK job of
supporting it, but trying to get help since the Macromedia buyout has been a
true hassle. Even worse, trying to purchase a copy of CF Server 4.5 since
5.0 was release and Macromedia took over has been a real nightmare. As a
general practice, i try to stay a revision or so behind for client projects
- between a major upgrade and a change in ownership, the client, their ISP,
and i agreed to stick with CF Server 4.5.2 Professional and wait a while
before upgrading to 5.0, and it's taken a huge amount of legwork and phone
time to purchase 4.5. i've dealt with Macromedia since my
Director-programming days in the early 90's, and as a developer, i'm really
bummed that they bought Allaire.
my two (okay, 25) cents,
Joe
Joe Niski | Senior Software Engineer/Internet Architect
Nine Dots
503.548.2176
Portland . Irvine . San Francisco . Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jackie Comeau [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 9:39 AM
> To: JRun-Talk
> Subject: RE: Learning path..Should I take it?
>
>
> I'm not familiar with CF, but if you can write Java code
> using CF and it's
> portable, I don't see any other reason to go to JSP. You'd be
> learning a
> language that would do the same things....if that is where CF
> is heading as
> you noted.
>
> Jackie
>
> On Monday, July 30, 2001 11:43 AM, SURBER, ANDREW L (SBC-MSI)
> [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
> > Speaking of CF and ASP programmers learning JSP...
> >
> > JSP seems like a lot of overhead to accomplish the same end result
> compared
> > to CF or ASP. IF CF 6 is going to be implemented in Java
> that means my CF
> > apps are going to be more portable.
> >
> > What kinds of things would I use JSP for that I wouldn't use CF for?
> >
> > -Thanks
> >
> >
> > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
> > Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
>
>
>
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