Re: php vs cold fusion

> <CFQUERY name="test_the_nutter" datasource="test"> > SELECT customer_id, first_name, last_name, tel_number > FROM customers > WHERE (first_name='#form.first_name#') > </CFQUERY> > > <CFOUTPUT query="test_the_nutter"> > #customer_id# #first_name# #last_name# > </CFOUTPUT> > > Yep - hardly difficult a 5 year old could write Coldfusion in Notepad after > a 5 minute demo. > > Anyway here is my bit: > > 1) Coldfusion - 10 times faster developement than ASP or PHP3/4 > That is where Coldfusion got it right - We all send mail, we all encrypt a > string so why re-invent > the wheel and have to write code for this - use a tag <CFMAIL or <CFCRYPT > etc...... Php's mail function is practically the same to use as CF's. I don't know about cfcrypt. But regarding your example of a database query, and displaying the result set above there - the very first thing I wrote when first using Php after using cfml for a couple of years was a dbquery() function which now makes it as simple as: dbquery($sql, &$rs, other_optional_args...); queryoutput($rs, 'customer_id', 'first_name', 'last_name'); It didn't take long to write those functions, in fact I don't even use the second one because it's just too easy to type: <? $n = count($rs); // only with big recordsets to save counting $rs each loop for($i=0;$i<$n;$i++) { ?> do html/database output here <? } ?> ...or not escaping php and using the heredoc style syntax, depending on the situation. All this knowing that it's nice fast code doing this stuff for me. So I feel that your comment about CF being 10 times faster to develop in, is very incorrect and misleading unless you're making uncommon generalisations, in which case you should probably say so. > 2) Coldfusion - more stable than PHP3/4 I wonder what you mean here - this makes everyone in my company laugh - especially my employers who completely enjoy my no longer reporting to them that IIS/CF 'couldn't be controlled in their present state' or found and killed by tlist/kill and required the server they were running on, to be rebooted to function for the next few hours before needing the same again. In contrast, we now pump through 30+ times the traffic using the exact hardware which used to have CF running on it, with Php instead. Additionally, I'd never even touched Linux until keeping CF up and running on NT and Solaris became such an incredible problem for us as our web traffic grew. The last time I rebooted since converting the majority of our stuff to Php, was to upgrade the kernel. If this is because I'm not adept at configuring and maintaing CF, but somehow fluked getting Php running nicely with a vastly increased traffic load and increased level of complexity to our applications, then so be it. But I still feel your number 2) comment is very incorrect and needs alternate opinion so that it doesn't incorrectly influence a reader of this list. > 3) Coldfusion costly hosting Not to mention that a large number of the ISP's offering CF hosting disable many of the tags including the basic file handling ones, which renders it very crippled. In summary, I think that if you don't mind paying the $$$ for ColdFusion, and don't have a very high traffic load, and don't mind the limits of it's functionality, it's good to use. I think it's easier for the less-experienced developer to grasp and begin using too. Having used both cfml and Php (I actually started and continued using cfml about 3 years before I ever touched Php), as well as asp/vbscript and perl to develop lots of websites for my company's clients, I just prefer Php hands down because I know that I can hand it over without worrying about it getting loaded up and crawling to a halt when lots of visitors hit their site, and it won't take me longer to develop something than it would with cfml. When I first started with Php, I was of the opinion that it was slower to use. I later realised that was because of my approach to programming, especially since cfml was the only programming or scripting I had ever done before. Now that I've used it for a while, I can do things at the same rate I used to with cfml. The argument of one language versus another is a very tough one because so many developers have different needs and priorities, not to mention differences in their personalities and thinking patterns. That's why it's best to make sure you state that 'these are the reasons I *feel* that suchandsuch a language is better', otherwise you're quite likely just misleading people who read what you write. jason