Overcoming the misconceptions of ColdFusion

We discuss ColdFusion and common misconceptions and ask our own mso developers what they feel about the programming language

Despite being a popular programming language that is used worldwide, there are still a lot of common misconceptions that surround ColdFusion. This article examines why ColdFusion is so popular and will look into the views of what our very own developers think.

Why ColdFusion?

ColdFusion is a commercial, enterprise level, application server product from Adobe, which has proven popular with developers worldwide mainly for its ease of use and compatibility. ColdFusion is designed to be a high availability rapid application development platform for web applications. ColdFusion enables developers to produce high end functionality sites for their clients.

In a White Paper “Turning Up the Heat with ColdFusion” commissioned by Adobe in April 2013, intelligence provider IDC stated that, “ColdFusion has remained popular among its loyal users and has continued to attract new developers interested in its unique blend of capabilities.” At mso.net we have a team of 16 in-house ColdFusion developers dedicated to creating websites and digital platforms that support clients’ complex business objectives, while presenting the user with a simple, intuitive design. We can and do use other web development languages, but ColdFusion is our first choice because of the benefits it brings to both our clients and us.

“ColdFusion can provide unique value that is not addressed by any competing alternative technology. Most notably, ColdFusion is unmatched by any competitor for ease of use and technical abilities” – Gartner report, published in May 2009.

A common misconception….

“ColdFusion is an old language” – This is a common misconception. ColdFusion was launched in 1995 and since then it has had ten major releases – that equates to a new version being released every two years. ColdFusion was originally developed by Allaire who were acquired by Macromedia in 2001 who were then subsequently acquired by Adobe in 2007. ColdFusion is used by approximately 75% of the Fortune 500 companies.

Future developments

Adobe’s commitment to continuing to develop the CF platform was outlined in the public beta release in February. ColdFusion project Splendor is the next major release of ColdFusion, version 11. The CF project Splendor provides an all-in-one application server that offers you a single platform to rapidly build and deploy scalable, high-performing web and mobile applications in enterprise environments.

What do the mso.net developers think?

“As a ColdFusion expert, mso.net has historically always used CF. It was originally chosen because of its ease of use and quick development time compared to other web scripting languages – something that still holds true today. As for the ‘ColdFusion is Dying’ statement – this is a recurring question that has cropped up ever since I started developing in ColdFusion (over 10 years ago), but has never been proven. I think that maybe ColdFusion is becoming more niche, but it is still a thriving community – particularly since the introduction of the Open CFML foundation and open-source CFML engines such as Railo. Also, ColdFusion 11 is now in beta (code-named Splendor) and so if ColdFusion were dying out, Adobe would certainly not be spending resources (time and money) investing in continued development of their CFML engine, would they? I think not.” – Chris Williams, Head of Front End Development

“ColdFusion allows rapid development of applications that are reliable and efficient. Due to its use of Java behind the scenes it also allows developers to perform actions otherwise unavailable within ColdFusion giving it an even greater degree of flexibility.

With the release of open and free CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) engines such as Railo and OpenBD, the previous high cost associated with using ColdFusion due to server licensing is vastly reduced. This will hopefully help boost ColdFusion as more developers (re)discover just how far it has come in recent years.” – Simon Hooker, Head of Product Development

To find out more please see: Programming languages of the world – http://visual.ly/programming-languages-world

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