Which to learn?

I can't answer your question for you as to which one to choose, but I can give you some insights.

which is easier to learn?
Coldfusion, hands down. Coldfusion uses CFML tags similair to HTML tags and has many predefined functions. If you understand how HTML works and have even the tiniest understanding of programming or logic, then Coldfusion is easy to learn.

ASP is not hard to learn, but it is more involved and requires a pretty good understanding of VBScript or JScript.

Which is more secure?
Don't know really. I read all the Allaire and Microsoft security bulletins, and they both have issues. I would suggest you review them yourself.

What is more widely supported?
Well, I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume that ASP is more widely supported simply because it is free with IIS and Coldfusion Server cost like 1200$.

The only MAJOR difference that I can think of between Coldfusion and ASP is the price. ASP is free and Coldfusion is not. I would think that this would reflect is the hosting costs from the provider, i.e. they may charge you more for Coldfusion services.

Oh yeah, though I have never used it, there is another alternative called PHP that you may want to look into also.

good luck

Woody,

RC covered it pretty well. I don't have a lot of experience with CF but I have quite a bit of experience building e-commerce (B2B,B2C) using ASP and highly recommend it. If you're planning on building these sorts of applications you'll be using a database and ASP interfaces nicely with SQL 7.0.

I'm not sure if CF supports the use of COM objects, you'll be using these to since it provides more security (system level) and ASP makes them easy to manipulate (passing values to and from COM object).

Like RC said, PHP is another server side alternative. If you're going to be using NT server then I would definately recommend using ASP.

Regards,
Peter J. Boettcher

Thanks guys,

It seems that ASP is the language to learn. Would this be possible using InterDev on Win 98 and Personal Web Server, or do you have to build on an NT machine? You mentioned SQL 7 - I know only Access so would this be enough for the database side; what are the benefits of SQL? Much appreciated

Regards
Woody

ps.apparently Coldfusion supports COM objects through its CFobject.

Woody,

Using Interdev with Win98 and PWS is fine, although using NT workstation or Windows 2000 will be much more stable.

Using Access as your database is fine, you won't even have to modify hardly any code if you ever switch to SQL 7.0. SQL 7.0 is just more robust and fast, but if you're just learning then Access is fine, but I definately wouldn't be building any ecommerce sites on Access, you're limited to how many users can be using the database at the same time with Access before you get errors. You can get roughly 10-20 heavy users on Access compared to thousands on SQL 7.

Regards,
Peter J. Boettcher

Thanks Peter,
Your advice has been really helpful. I'll definitely go for SQL then, and Win 2000. Gotta get cracking.
Woody