It’s costly,it isn’t ‘open source’ but still it’s becoming a handy replacement of PHP(and .NET) for plenty of developers worldwide. And there are a number of reasons why PHP guys prefer ColdFusion nowadays.
BTW,ColdFusion is a web application development language,governed by Adobe(primarily developed by Allairs,which were acquired by Macromedia in 2001 and further,Macromedia got acquired by Adobe in 2005).
Right now, the trends are very much in favor of PHP. It has already captured a big chunk of the web development arena (consuming .NET market) due to its “Free” and “Crowd fueled” nature. But still,the ColdFusion community is steadily growing stronger.
These reasons may not convince every PHP addict to shift over Coldfusion but will convince the PHP programmers enough reasons to give this ‘alternative’ a try(if they haven’t tried CF already).
So,here are the reasons for justifying the title of this write-up…
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A beginner’s delight
ColdFusion(CF) is much simpler and cleaner(in terms of coding) and resembles HTML to some extent.Hence,even an HTML guy(with some OOP concept brief-up) can grab CF a lot easier than PHP or .NET.
ColdFusion’s grammar leads to fewer and more understandable lines of code,which is an ideal situation for a beginner in the field of programming.
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Less complex
ColdFusion tries to hide the complexities. You probably have a specific tool for handling administrative details which saves you time, avoid mistakes, and have much less details to review and adjust.
Here’s how a sample database query written in PHP :
<?
mysql_connect(localhost,username,password);
mysql_select_db($database);
$result = mysql_query(“select * from counter”);
?>
Now,the same query in CF looks like this…
<cfquery name=”Company” datasource=”yourDB“>
select from VendorID
</cfquery>
This clearly depicts the difference in complexity between CF & PHP.Also,it requires fewer lines of code than PHP, .NET or JSP to perform a similar function with ColdFusion
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Smart error handling & debugging
It lets programmers create their own error handlers where extra care is required so that your application fails(if there is no other option) gracefully. With ColdFusion, one can customize error messages for a particular situation or event and can provide a certain level of detail to users and a different level of maintainers/programmers.
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Integration with Macromedia Products
If you are already using Dreamweaver for web page designing, then you will find it best to do the scripting in ColdFusion, as you get the benefits that integration between these two adobe services gives you.
You can insert ColdFusion code into Dreamweaver files quickly without any hassle and you can also use its built-in editor to modify the code.ColdFusion also integrates superbly with Adobe’s flagship product,Flash.
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Cross-Platform compatibility
ColdFusion has proven its platform compatibility with hardly any exceptions on its part. ColdFusion MX offers better integration with J2EE compliance,offers broader XML support and much more.
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Long time PHP developers may defend PHP with numerous justifications(which is also true on their part because PHP is undoubtedly a prime option when it comes to developing web applications) but the above listed reasons fall on the CF’s side for sure.
For more technical insight on suitable adoption of programming languages and their impact on the performance of IT projects as a whole, one can always refer to professional IT Consulting services, available through various companies in this line of business.