Thoughts on Coldfusion

[pigz]

vs others like php etc?

 

[mattjw916]

I'm no web-guru but we deployed a lot of web-sites in Cold Fusion and the developers really seemed to like it. No software is without bugs though.

 

[theDot]

I think that most would pick php over Coldfusion, but to each their own.

 

[HorsePunchKid]

I have been using ColdFusion professionally for a couple of years now. It's excellent for simple web-to-database applications. Development, debugging, and deployment are all very rapid, and I find the resulting markup/code vastly more legible and maintainable than PHP (which is itself certainly not the worst of the lot).

Here's a little comparison, which is of course not terribly realistic. I think it gives you at least a general idea of how readable ColdFusion is, though. And that doesn't even touch on custom tags, which are a godsend that PHP is totally lacking.

The downside: ColdFusion is a terrible programming language. For example, nested loops are officially unsupported, and they do make for some very confusing bugs when dealing with queries. Also, ColdFusion is far from free, if that's an issue for you.

 

[doh]

Here's a little comparison, which is of course not terribly realistic. I think it gives you at least a general idea of how readable ColdFusion is, though. And that doesn't even touch on custom tags, which are a godsend that PHP is totally lacking.

Ignoring the ugly tep_db_query (which is not a standard PHP function) function call (and very evil SQL query written in a non-readable way) the PHP segment is fairly easy to read especially if you have even just a very basic grasp of PHP.

If it was me I would probably have used sprintf to format the query.

 

[Hartlove]

I reluctantly moved over to CF about a year and a half ago for my job. I'm a huge fan as far as the web development goes. I find the code to come out pretty clean, as long as you know what you're doing. It does have it's quirks, but I think they're well documented at least, so it's not hard to find out why something's not working.

Like HorsePunchKid says though, CF is not a programming language. It lets you do some slick stuff, but it's focus is generating web content.

Depending on how you feel about flash, CF 7 will let you generate flash paper on the fly, as well as flash based forms and charts.

If you just want to try it out, download the free developers edition. That gives you the full server, and allows a single IP to view the pages. If the pages you're developing are going on a paid hosting service, you can develop with the free version, and not have to buy the CF server at all.

 

[HorsePunchKid]

which is not a standard PHP function

I do realize that, but it is very typical of the sorts of lame programming I've seen in PHP applications to get around the fact that querying databases and dealing with result sets is an ugly process when it's embedded in markup. Again, I believe the example illustrates this idea, regardless of the layer you go through to access the database.

and very evil SQL query written in a non-readable way

The SQL query itself is even more typical of the PHP I see (Gallery and osCommerce, for example), and it's exactly the kind of code you're "expected" to write (documentation and tutorials, in my experience). ColdFusion on the other hand, while still far from ideal in its handling of queries, at least lets you easily write queries in a natural fashion (that is, in the way that SQL queries are typically presented outside of any particular programming environment).

fairly easy to read especially if you have even just a very basic grasp of PHP.

I do have well beyond a "very basic grasp" of PHP, and despite my experience and vim's courageous effort to make it legible with syntax highlighting, I still find it to be hideous. I would much rather work with the query as I formatted it in the ColdFusion example. I don't have to worry about quotes and concatenation and all that garbage that has nothing to do with SQL.

If it was me I would probably have used sprintf to format the query.

If it were me, I would have done a lot of things differently. Any experienced programmer has a bag of tricks to make their code more maintainable. I suggest that ColdFusion requires a much smaller bag of tricks to produce maintainable code, and is therefore much more conducive to rapidly producing smallish web-to-database applications.

 

[pigz]

cant say i have mastered either, but i prefer cfm to php

 

[doh]

The SQL query itself is even more typical of the PHP I see (Gallery and osCommerce, for example), and it's exactly the kind of code you're "expected" to write (documentation and tutorials, in my experience).

I was referring to writing the query in the format of:

SELECT
   *
FROM
   table
WHERE
   a='a'
LIMIT 1

so it's not one large line of text.

 

[a_n_d_y15]

I used CFM for a client project, and I found it quite useful sometimes. The project wasnt anythying too big, it dealt mostly with writing/reading data from a MySQL database. After doing a lot of C/C++ and Java, getting used to its syntax was a bit weird, but nothing too bad.
I didnt use PHP that much, so I am not going to comment on it.

 

[Staples]

I have only used PHP and Perl as far as web stuff is concerned. I like PHP because it is very user friendly. It tells you were the error is and many times what is causing the error. One minor reason I don't like it is because it is so simple and everyone and their grandmother uses it. Make me just look like one in the crowd. At least jsp, perl (which is no so user friendly)/ .aspx and CFM are not so common.