Macromedia ColdFusion - Software Review and User Report
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Macromedia ColdFusion is a web server platform, built on a tag-based system very much like HTML, only far more powerful and almost as easy to use. You don't have to know vbscript or javascript to make it run. Its key advantage is that it was made from scratch for creating interactive web sites, as a "cold fusion" of the most coveted and sought-after features and functions. It's based on its proprietary markup language, called CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language), and complemented by the CF Scripting scripting language. If you hate learning code, never read the help files or follow a tutorial, don't need full in-depth control of your site's nuts and bolts, and just want to build a database-driven website comparatively easily and swiftly, you should opt for Ultradev instead: while supporting Macromedia ColdFusion, it lets you work in visual mode.
With ColdFusion 5.0, an entire application may be archived, greatly simplifying the task of deploying it to multiple servers. Other server improvements comprise integration with network management systems through SNMP and enhanced integration with hardware load balancers such as Cisco's 11000 series. With Macromedia ColdFusion 5.0, the administrator can create application probes that inspect your application by executing HTTP requests and monitoring the results. If a piece of code is not performing properly, the system notifies you.
Query Of Queries allows you to get a database query recordset, and then perform SQL statements against that recordset. You could query for, say, a list of articles in stock, then run a query against that recordset for a specific item. As ColdFusion interacts with the database only once in the process, performance is enhanced.
On a Windows 2000 machine, Macromedia claims up to a 400 percent performance increase in Macromedia ColdFusion 5.0 as compared to the previous version. For the most part, this performance improvement may be ascribed to ColdFusion's better memory management and to the new Merant wire-protocol ODBC drivers. Some third-party preliminary tests support these performance claims, making the upgrade from v4.5 a sensible choice.
Software Review - Pros
Enhanced CFML and CF Scripting in Macromedia ColdFusion 5.0. With the long-overdue User-Defined Functions, you can build custom function libraries that can be reused throughout your application. They even execute faster than CFML custom tags. With the CfFlush tag, Macromedia ColdFusion can now serve only a part of a page or a notification to the browser - such as, "Searching. Please wait..." - while the server performs a database query or exchanges information with an offsite verification system;
comes in Linux flavor as well;
sometimes does in three lines of code what ASP or others do in thirty;
ColdFusion 5.0 is a leap forward. Not only has it gotten improved from v4.5, but more complete and faster as well.
Software Review - Cons
The printed documentation leaves a bit to be desired. And we all know that a paperless, online manual/guide is never as practical to consult - or underline, or annotate etc. - as a printed one. As an antidote, you can purchase COLDFUSION SERVER 5.0 DOC SET for $49;
the Verity K2 search engine server is a pain to install and configure. There have been rumors about Query Of Queries not always processing complex SQL joins correctly: reportedly, it only supports inner joins.
Building MacRomedia ColdFusion 6 Applications for $28. A good manual with lots of help, info and how-to's. Highly recommended to anyone who is serious about ColdFusion programming.
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