Why ColdFusion?
A lot of developers ask me, "Why ColdFusion? Why not .Net, PHP, Ruby or some other language?" A lot of non-developers ask, "What is ColdFusion?". I'll tell you what it is and why I use it. I've been developing with ColdFusion for over ten years now, and it's still my favorite programming language. It is by far the easiest to learn and best way to implement Web applications in my opinion. The truth is, I am a lazy programmer. I love code, but I hate reinventing the wheel. And, I hate it when something takes 50 lines of code and can actually be done in 5. ColdFusion makes it easier to develop. Period. But, it is incredibly powerful. As I tell my students, CF is much like learning to play the guitar--it is easy to pick up, but difficult to master.
Many people, including many Web developers, still do not understand the utilization of ColdFusion in the development workflow. Many developers believe CF is a "dying language" or something not utilized by many people at all. The truth is, CF is extremely popular, and is utilized by Fortune 500 companies and the government. See a comprehensive list here. ColdFusion's ownership transitioned from Allaire, to Macromedia, to Adobe. It is now up to version 8 and is better than ever. Since it is now owned by Adobe, it integrates seamlessly with other dominating technologies, like Flash and the growing rich Internet application platform Flex. Adobe also is moving forward with a hybrid platform called AIR, which integrates the Web with the desktop. This will undoubtedly integrate more with CF in the near future.
Is ColdFusion going away? Is it a "dead language"? NO. It's only getting better. Just ask the thousands of developers worldwide who use it every day. If you want to learn more, start here or here. For an aggregation of hundreds of CF blogs, visit here.
