Thoughts on Cold Fusion

Well what do you think is more powerful. Cold Fusion or PHP/ASP? I have heard alot of people say ASP and PHP. I was just curious. I personally am not all that great with programming. I know html, and am really good with Dreamweaver. Does Cold Fusion work well with Dreamweaver? Thanks in advance RC or whoever else replies

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Adam
[email protected]
C&C Wireless- For all your wireless needs!

Well, since as far as I can tell I'm the only CF user on these forums, I guess I will field this question.

Basically, Coldfusion is software that sits on your server to process CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) tags passed to it via .cfm pages. The Coldfusion Server processes these commands in order to provide access to and manipulation of databases. In its most basic use, Coldfusion enables dynamic web pages by reading the values out of a database each time the page is loaded or takes information from a form and inserts into a database.

CFML has been designed to look like HTML so that everything is in tags. So for example, <CFQUERY>.....comands....</CFQUERY> etc etc. It is incredibly easy to use if you know HTML and have any sense of programming logic.
In addition, 3rd party tags are created that do a myriad of things. These tags are then registered with your server and can be used.

So, in answer to your second question. It is pretty powerful. Let me know if you have any more questions, I'm never sure how clear I am being .

[Disclaimer: I know nothing about PHP so it was left out of this]

It all really depends on what you are going to do with it all and what your resources are. Case in point:

ASP = 0 $
ColdFusion Server 4.5 Professional for Windows $1,295.00

IMO, Coldfusion is more powerful simply because of the ease of development and avaliable custom tags. However, for probably 95% of stuff you are going to want to do, ASP will serve just as good. Unless you dream in VBScript, it is simply going to take more time to develop your site with ASP than with CF. However, there is also at least 3 times more ASP web sites out there than Coldfusion help sites. (Not to mention you can bug Peter hehe)

Here are some comparisons (dont know how up to date they are)
http://www.houseoffusion.com/hof/body/asp.cfm
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/030200-1.shtml
http://www.swynk.com/friends/murphy/ironic_isnt_it.asp

As far as Dreamweaver is concerned..I am not sure. I always hand code everything in notepad. The file extension for CF files is .cfm. Would that make a difference in Dreamweaver? Allaire, of course, provides their own development package called CF Studio which is like Dreamweaver for CF pages I guess.

ColdFusion Studio 4.5 $495.00
Again, money can be an issue.

I am a CF fan so I would say go with that, especially if you don't like programming. Of course, you have to look at the money though.

bilbong30,

RC laid it out pretty clear (although I would have to say that neither is really more powerful since you can achieve the same results with both, custom tags in CF, custom components in ASP).

Also, it really depends on your background which one is more easy to use. If you come from a VB/programming background then ASP will seem very simple to use. Whereas if you are just mastering HTML structure then CF would seem simpler to use.

In the end it comes down to what you're comfortable with and what web server you plan on using.

RC,

Dreaming in VBScript, hehe, I have hade some programming nightmares... "Error on line 230,432....quick here comes the NULL monster, recompile, RECOMPILE, damn, the compiler is jammed.

Whatever happenned to those good old BASIC days:

10 PRINT "THIS IS COOL"
20 GOTO 10

Ahhh, if only life were that simple.

Regards,
Peter J. Boettcher

[This message has been edited by Peter J. Boettcher (edited 01 May 2000).]

Ok, from what i hear i think i would like to download Cold Fusion. I am not at all good at programming so i think CF would be easier for me. Is there a site and certain program i should download? Does it matter what version? I am going to be using it with Dreamweaver most likely.

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Adam
[email protected]
C&C Wireless- For all your wireless needs!

Allaire offers trial versions of CF on thier site. http://commerce.allaire.com/download/. I think it is limited to 30 days or something. Get version 4.5. There is Professional and Enterprise versions. You will have to read up on what each one does. Enterprise is the bid daddy and runs about 5 grand. I use professional and that is the price I quoted above. Let me know how it works out.

Peter

haha, I'll tell you what happened to the good old days of BASIC. Someone took a look at that code and said, "I can make this cooler." and then they added a comma to the program.

10 PRINT "THIS IS COOL",
20 GOTO 10

Wooo. Now it staggers.

And then people kept adding stuff .

One of the worst feelings ever is trying to compile code and getting 50+ errors. Heh

Aborting!
Possibly incorrect assignment in function main
Possibly incorrect assignment in function main
Unreachable code in function main
Unreachable code in function main
Unreachable code in function main
Unreachable code in function main
Unreachable code in function main
: Parameter 'argv' is never used in function main
: Parameter 'argc' is never used in function main

blah blah blah

RC and Peter basically covered it. Cold Fusion is less common then ASP, however it’s as powerful. You may find that ASP is easier to use because of the vast amount of ASP programmers and resource sites, also a lot more hosts support ASP then do CF.

Cold Fusion like PHP is cross platform compatible. Which means it can run on either NT or UNIX. ASP requires a third party module to do this (Chili Soft or Halcylon).

Cold Fusion is also a database language and a scripting language. Where PHP and ASP are purely a scripting language with the ability to connect to a database (such as SQL).

I personally use PHP most of the time when dealing with database integration. However I’ve also worked with ASP a few times. Never had a chance to develop a CF site, however I’ve played around with the Cold Fusion Studio.

It’s all got to do with what your comfortable using. You can do almost the same things with ASP, PHP, or CF. Just depends on how you like to work and accomplish a project.

Good luck,

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Adam
AIS Internet Solutions
[email protected]
www.aisinternet.com

Well thanks everyone for your responses. I think what im gonna do is download the trial when i have time and play with it. Thanks for your help!

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Adam
[email protected]
C&C Wireless- For all your wireless needs!