Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 11:34 PM, Derrick Peavy derr...@derrickpeavy.com wrote: Finally, if I narrow this down, I would refine my question as follows: How do you explain to someone who writes PHP ( in this example) why their code (which I can read), is krap. They don't want to take my word since I don't do PHP. But krap is krap and you can see it if you have experience in either code base. This is usually where development standards and code reviews come into play. -Cameron -- Cameron Childress Sumo Consulting Inc http://www.sumoc.com --- cell: 678.637.5072 aim: cameroncf email: camer...@gmail.com - To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com -
RE: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
As is usual, what is missing from this conversation is ... money. Geeks get emotionally attached to their technologies. The like this, they love that. This is cool. To some it borders on religion - Open source or death!. But what is important is the money. Business owners, non-profits, whatever, hire us to build a tool to fix a problem. We should choose the technologies to build that tool that will provide the business owner with the lowest cost of ownership. In most cases everything else is secondary. I cannot think of any compelling reason to use PHP except that the company's IT team uses it and already know it. Even then, it would likely be cost effective over the long run to switch to CF. asp.net does have some compelling features and it is the only real competing technology to CF in my opinion. RoR has compelling features - but hasn't gained enough traction that I would recommend it as an enterprise level solution to any decent sized client. PHP is for amateurs and .net costs more to develop in. Java is ridicules to develop in from a cost perspective. Why use Java when you have a high level abstraction called ColdFusion that saves vast amounts of work and homogenizes the code base? Bottom line - you can build and maintain web apps for less money using ColdFusion. Period. CF is the clear choice. Now - Adobe needs to get their marketing act together. The have the best technology. CF needs resources put into development (time to get rid of the stupid bugs) and they really need to focus on the top 1,000 companies in the US. Unless, they have decided that they are just going to abandon CF if it doesn't grow organically? Personally, I think they should hire a small sales force to direct market to key (large) accounts. Too many CIO's have no idea of the benefits of CF, or worse, think it is a dying technology. Shane Heasley _ From: ad...@acfug.org [mailto:ad...@acfug.org] On Behalf Of Derrick Peavy Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 10:49 AM To: discussion@acfug.org Subject: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback. 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$con = mysql_connect(db/id/pw)and then the connection was not closed until line 92mysql_close($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
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
I agree that from the business point of view the most important figure is the lowest cost of ownership. Also, that a most cases good CF programmer can build an app cheaper then a comparable app in PHP even when considering the higher initial cost of CF server and the slightly higher wages of the CF programmer. (due mostly to rapid app development.) However the money argument falls flat in one overriding aspect: Most non-technical business people do not understand technology. Without this knowledge they are more than likely to look at pure price comparisons without knowing about the real cost of labor and maintenance over time. When this happens, the cost of PHP (free) along with a cheaper source of programmers will always win. Here is a personal example of business people calculating the costs... Right before I started with CF, I was using everyone's favorite language to bash: COBOL and JCL. I worked at a large telecommunications company (component of the DJIA,) and I was outsourced followed by offshored. The outsourcing company said that it was purely financial in nature in that a local developer cost $90/hr while the cost associated with a offshore programmer was $30/hr. (These were the billing total of the outsourcing company and not only included my wages by my share of my manager wages and so on up through the levels.) I was able to quickly secure a new job when the off-shoring occurred which meant that my position was the first to be replaced. I kept close ties with my co-workers and found out that the first task of my replacement(s) was to remove a single step from each of 20 related JCL procedures. (They were clones of each other.) I could have easily done an tested this process in 8 hours; however the three (yes, three) replacements that did this work billed a total of 120 hours to complete it. Admittedly, I had pre-existing knowledge of the system, but anyone that knows JCL and is told the exact step to remove would not need much additional knowledge in order to accomplish the task. But, not only did it take them so long to accomplish, when they moved the procs to the production environment nearly all of the jobs failed. They failed because of parameter overides in the changed procs. Essentially, when removing the step, they failed to remove parameters that were only referenced in that step causing a syntax error in the JCL. Long story short, they never tested what was moved or even performed a simple syntax check on the modified codes. Now, here is where the money kicks in: Cost to client for me to do it: $90 x 8hrs = $720 Cost for offshore devs to do it incorrectly : $30 x 120hrs = $3600 Clearly my knowledge and experience shows that by keeping me, the client would save $2,820. However, to the non-technical business manager assumes that all programmers are the same, and in doing so thinks that I too would take 120 hours costing $10,800. So to the non-techie, he/she thinks they saved the company $7,200 when it really cost the company $2,820 more. (of course at this time any MBA would ask for a bonus/raise for saving so much money and get rid of anyone that argues against their math. :-) ) So money is the most important aspect to a business person, but make sure that you include educating the business people into the realism of development. --Frank On 07/10/2010 01:44 PM, Shane Heasley wrote: As is usual, what is missing from this conversation is ... money. Geeks get emotionally attached to their technologies. The like this, they love that. This is "cool". To some it borders on religion - "Open source or death!". But what is important is the money. Business owners, non-profits, whatever, hire us to build a tool to fix a problem. We should choose thetechnologies to build that toolthat will provide the business owner with the lowest cost of ownership. In most cases everything else is secondary. I cannot think of any compelling reason to use PHP except that the company's IT team uses it and already know it. Even then, it would likely be cost effective over the long run to switch to CF. asp.net does have some compelling features and it is the only real competing technology to CF in my opinion. RoR has compelling features - but hasn't gained enough traction that I would recommend it as an enterprise level solution to any decent sized client. PHP is for amateurs and .net costs more to develop in. Java is ridicules to develop in from a cost perspective. Why use Java when you have a high level abstraction called ColdFusion that saves vast amounts of work and homogenizes the code base? Bottom line - you can build and maintainweb appsfor less money using ColdFusion. Period. CF is the clear choice. Now - Adobe needs to get their marketing act together. The have the best technology. CF needs resources put into development (time to get rid ofthe stupid bugs)and they really need to focus on the top 1,000 companies in the US.
RE: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
I completely agree. If you want to make the sale you have to educate the client. Most owners (of real companies) can quickly see the advantage - if you are credible. Most mid level managers - they want to take the path of least resistance. Most owners of cash strapped little businesses can't get past the initial expense - hey I have been there. So PHP does serve a useful function. It is great when you have more time than money - and you are writing the code yourself. Actually CF hosting is so cheap now I can't even make that argument with a straight face. Too bad Adobe has done such a rotten job in this area and it is up to us to promote would should be the industry dominator. BTW, Adobe, the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy... :-) _ From: ad...@acfug.org [mailto:ad...@acfug.org] On Behalf Of Charlie Arehart Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 5:48 PM To: discussion@acfug.org Subject: RE: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback. Good point, Frank. And it's not just managers who fall into that false economy trap. I experience the same with some CFers who, when faced with a problem, may balk at my troubleshooting support rate of $175 hour, saying Gosh, I only get x per hour, so that's too much! What they don't think about is that they can spend a few hours trying to solve a problem (and sometimes may spend days or weeks suffering from it), when they might be able to bring me (or others who do such support) in for perhaps just an hour. I even offer a satisfaction guarantee, so that people need not pay if I don't really prove helpful. Still, some just see that big rate and balk. (Fortunately I get plenty of folks who do bring me in.) I'm just saying that false economy seems a prevalent challenge. Sorry to take the thread a little off-course. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. :-) /charlie From: ad...@acfug.org [mailto:ad...@acfug.org] On Behalf Of Frank Moorman Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 5:21 PM To: discussion@acfug.org Subject: Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback. I agree that from the business point of view the most important figure is the lowest cost of ownership. Also, that a most cases good CF programmer can build an app cheaper then a comparable app in PHP even when considering the higher initial cost of CF server and the slightly higher wages of the CF programmer. (due mostly to rapid app development.) However the money argument falls flat in one overriding aspect: Most non-technical business people do not understand technology. Without this knowledge they are more than likely to look at pure price comparisons without knowing about the real cost of labor and maintenance over time. When this happens, the cost of PHP (free) along with a cheaper source of programmers will always win. snip Now, here is where the money kicks in: Cost to client for me to do it: $90 x 8hrs = $720 Cost for offshore devs to do it incorrectly : $30 x 120hrs = $3600 Clearly my knowledge and experience shows that by keeping me, the client would save $2,820. However, to the non-technical business manager assumes that all programmers are the same, and in doing so thinks that I too would take 120 hours costing $10,800. So to the non-techie, he/she thinks they saved the company $7,200 when it really cost the company $2,820 more. (of course at this time any MBA would ask for a bonus/raise for saving so much money and get rid of anyone that argues against their math. :-) ) So money is the most important aspect to a business person, but make sure that you include educating the business people into the realism of development. --Frank - To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by FusionLink http://www.fusionlink.com - - To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com -
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
My opinion answers : 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. CF gives the ability to develop all kinds of applications faster and much easier way. Both were meant for Web Development and both do its job. Its matter of preference. Someone cannot put CF down just because He likes PHP. Like you said, CF has solid background since its Java based and because of that sky is the limit for CF. You can develop all kinds of applications. Biggest plus is you can develop applications way faster in CF compared to other languages out there. I can say without any doubt that programmers will continue to write bad code and it has nothing to do with CF, PHP, .NET, Java or any language. 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. I would say that since CF pages are basically compiled as Java Classes in background, its more of a compiled language. Experts feel free to correct me here. I am sure PHP is not compiled. Even if experts dont agree on the term *compiled* here, I would still sell CF with strong argument that its basically Java Classes and what it means is you can use your own java classes when needed. You can use any java api if you like. Thats huge. I repeat again, if you havent explored this area of CF, you are missing a trick. Of course, you dont have to use java but if there is a need, go for it. Needless to say, this would involve testing as well because you need to look at version etc. :-) How do you explain to someone the technical idea behind something like CF? I love this questions. I have my reasons a. CF is a rapid application development. Like you said, instead of writing 80 lines for something, we CFers do it in mayb 5 lines or so. :-) b. CF is based of well known, stable, and universally accepted language Java. c. There are so many functions available to do common tasks. d. When the task demands more, you can always go to Java to *extend* your application. Personally, to me, thats a huge plus. I can do anything with CF by using Java's power when needed. Similary, I am sure you can interact with .NET when needed. I am sure, its not easier in other languages to interact with another language or program. Big plus for CF on this one. e. Easy to learn since the language resembles html tag style f. Action Script available for people coming from JavaScripting background. g. Huge plus for people coming from Java background. They can take CF applications to another level with their Java Experience. h. Several tools available for performance, monitoring etc for CF i. Can deploy application as easy as web pages or j2ee application i.e. war file j. Can deploy application on most of the web servers out there IIS, WebSphere, JBoss, Tomcat etc. k. With CF9 even more support for things like ORM. Java guys simply love Hibernate which is the model on which CF's ORM is based. l. Last but not the least, several experts available to help out with issues or problems or open source projects. 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? With CF you reduce development time considerably by not worrying about small things like data connection etc. Just one administrator setting and you have a dsn. :-) Like I said, just my opinion. I can sleep well tonight having mentioned the technical idea behind CF. ;-) Ajas Mohammed / http://ajashadi.blogspot.com We cannot become what we need to be, remaining what we are. No matter what, find a way. Because thats what winners do. You can't improve what you don't measure. Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Derrick Peavy derr...@derrickpeavy.comwrote: *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
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
Why not code it in PHP? I've done some PHP, it's pretty slick, free and popular. It will give you the chance to learn something new and make yourself more marketable. I work with CF mostly, but won't hesitate to take a job doing something else. There are a limited number of CF jobs available, broaden your horizons. It's a language, not a cult. Les On 7/9/2010 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 -To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserformFor more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglistsArchive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com-
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
You should learn and understand other languages like PHP. Polygot programming will make you a better programmer overall. That being said, there are plenty of CF jobs from what I'm seeing and in fact the typical CF positions are higher paying from the PHP side, because there are fewer of us. PHP seems a bit over populated right now. John ma...@fusionlink.com On 7/9/10 4:13 PM, Les wrote: Why not code it in PHP? I've done some PHP, it's pretty slick, free and popular. It will give you the chance to learn something new and make yourself more marketable. I work with CF mostly, but won't hesitate to take a job doing something else. There are a limited number of CF jobs available, broaden your horizons. It's a language, not a cult. Les On 7/9/2010 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.commailto:derr...@derrickpeavy.com 404-786-5036 “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs * * * - To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Derrick Peavy derr...@derrickpeavy.com wrote: I know this is kind of long and winding, but I'd love some feedback. I've seen a ton of folks go through this on various mailing lists. Here's my take... PHP is not a bad language, CF is not a bad language. Performance, scale, lines of code, beautiful code - a PHP ninja can beat the crap out of a CF newbie and a CF ninja can beat the crap out of a PHP newbie. If you have a team of 5 ColdFusion developers, build in CF. If you have a team of 5 PHP developers, build in PHP. If you have a team of 5 PERL programmers, If you chose the technology before you hire the developers, hire developers who know the technology. Here's the tough love - I think you have three choices: 1) Change their mind 2) Learn PHP 3) Find another project I really don't think any of the 3 choices are bad but it sounds like #1 might already be off the table. If it's not, perhaps someone on the list can help you convince them that CF is an okay solution, but I'm not sure that's the best solution. Think about option 2 and 3, they might be an okay career move too. If you want to bounce more idea of some CF and PHP developers, I know that at least one PHP developer and at least one CF developer will be at the Tech Nosh lunch next Thursday. Come out and chat with everyone, bring the ATDC folks if you want... -Cameron -- Cameron Childress Sumo Consulting Inc http://www.sumoc.com --- cell: 678.637.5072 aim: cameroncf email: camer...@gmail.com - To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com -
Re: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback.
Thank you all for the responses. And to John Mason and Ajas Mohammed for clarifying some technical issues in a way that I can translate to others. Want to add a couple of things. First, I may eventually pick up some php. But not so much for this project. Second, the project is a start up that I am actually heading (1 of 2 leaders). I actually feel it DOES need to be in PHP simply because it solves an issue later on in any investment round. That might sound like a crazy thing, but it's about checking as many boxes as possible in the event if future investment. Finally, if I narrow this down, I would refine my question as follows: How do you explain to someone who writes PHP ( in this example) why their code (which I can read), is krap. They don't want to take my word since I don't do PHP. But krap is krap and you can see it if you have experience in either code base. ___ Derrick Peavy Sent from my iPhone ___ On Jul 9, 2010, at 15:56, Todd Hartle tallt...@hotmail.com wrote: I've found when it comes to programming languages it's like discussing politics or religion; you're just not going to convince anyone that doesn't already get it. Sent from my iPhone On Jul 9, 2010, at 2:16 PM, Derrick Peavy derr...@derrickpeavy.com wrote: Yea, I agree with that. If it's not my business or my project, then yeah, I agree doing it in whatever is maintainable by the greatest number of developers. No interest in trying to talk anyone in the project into CF. No way. Just wondering how you explain to someone the technical merits and how the two interpreted languages actually vary at the execution level. And then secondly, how to explain to someone who has done or does PHP, why their code (which I can read), is krap. They don't want to take my word since I don't do PHP. But krap is krap and you can smell it if you have experience in either code base. _ Derrick Peavy derr...@derrickpeavy.com 404-786-5036 “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” - Steve Jobs On Jul 9, 2010, at 12:30 PM, Todd Hartle wrote: Language is usually immaterial so use what you know. I'm an old CF die hard myself even though I don't code much these days. In terms of PHP etc, part of the problem is that finding good CF people is getting harder and harder as other language become more popular. So based on technical merits either CF or PHP would do the job but if something is being sold off finding people to maintain the system may then indeed be a factor. From: derr...@derrickpeavy.com To: discussion@acfug.org Subject: [ACFUG Discuss] I find myself where I have tried to avoid going. A short rant and then a question. Would love some feedback. Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 11:48:45 -0400 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
