There are lots of posts concerning the recent ComputerWorld article where the author claims ColdFusion is dead (along with Powerbuilder YES!).
Good discussions going on here:
Now I agree articles like this are complete fluff - but I do think it says something about ColdFusion - why does it constantly show up on lists like this? I think Adobe needs to seriously look at it’s marketing and promotion of ColdFusion.
I know, I know - Ben and Tim just went on their whirlwind tour - but they were for the most part preaching to the choir - telling existing ColdFusion developers how great ColdFusion 8 is going to be….
But we already know that! 
I think Adobe needs to do a few things:
- Spend some money on advertising - during the Scorpio tour - there should have been t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. for everyone. I have no idea if it’s effective marketing or not - I’m just PO I didn’t win a Scorpio t-shirt.
- Look at the pricing of ColdFusion. Everyone else (PHP, .NET, JAVA, Rails, etc) is ‘free’. Now that ColdFusion is part of Adobe (who has lots of $$) maybe there could be more flexibility in the pricing of ColdFusion?
- Consider developing an ISP version of ColdFusion - the sandboxed CFAdmin login in Scorpio should make this easier. Price it right and get ColdFusion into the cheap hosting marketplace.
- Make a concerted effort to get the ColdFusion name out into the mainstream press. And when there are articles like the ComputerWorld one published - demand they print a rebuttal.
- Improve the tools available to ColdFusion developers. I would have no problem with a nice “Dreamweaver is dead” article.
- Did I already mention free t-shirts?
Fun with Google Trends:
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9 Comments
“(along with Powerbuilder YES!)”
… as a former powerbuilder developer (now doing CF) i can only echo that sentiment.
I was hoping that Flex 2.0’s popularity would spur more companies and developers to adopt ColdFusion since Flex and CF works so well together. Flex remoting is built into CFMX 7. All the other languages (PHP, Java, ASP .net) neet an extension and/or Flex Data Services.
But Adobe has done nothing to promote a Flex front-end/CF backend. Now that major books are rolling out about Flex it is going to get even worse.
The Programming Flex 2.0 book from O’Reilly barely mentions CF as a backend language (but does mention several times PHP, Java, ASP .net). Adobe’s Flex Developer’s Center has lots of articles on how to use Flex with Java and ASP .net (but not many recent ones on Flex and CF).
I had high hopes that Flex 2.0 would provide a major increase in companies using CF. So far, I don’t think that’s happening.
Great points. Hope somebody at Adobe is paying attention. Managers actually read this junk and believe it.
BTW: My Allaire t-shirt is a little worn these days. And nothing is cooler than the CF logo.
Well, ya you have to be sketpical of what any so called ‘journalist’ writes - they don’t write for truth, they write for ratings (although that’s supposedly against their code).
You know the saying, any press is good press. Sometimes companies will do something negative on purpose to upset a lot of people and all the buzz that results in it.
Imagine if someone like CNET put together a serious looking article on why Java is dying, everyone would be in an uproar.
I hate to say it, but I think pushing flex+CF might actually drag flex down in the minds of people who already have a bad opinion about CF. If, on the other hand, Flex is pitched to them and they love it, and start looking at code for flex+php/java/ruby and then see how extremely easy CF is maybe they’ll be more likely to give it a fair chance. One new pitch at a time, then people can go from there.
I didn’t see any way to ping your blog back, so here was a quick reply to your post =)
http://www.cfcode.net/index.cf.....nsive#more
The Google Trends was interesting … looks like Canada and the US Federal Government (Washington, Colorado, Ga, etc seem to have a bigger CF than .. (cobol) following … as for trends … I like http://www.tiobe.com … they have a nice index of Programming Languages. CF is 28-32, powerbuilder, the bottom 50 …
Coldfusion is just the wrong approach. A proprietary version of an open source J2EE server being loaded with a proprietary version of an open source PDF library and fitted with an interpreter for a proprietary scripting language is not my idea of a good web development platform. Why doesn’t Adobe just sell some Java libraries to create Flash and PDFs? That would be more useful. But then they could basically repackage a couple of open source technologies and make a killing off of it, nor could they please oldschool script kiddies who never became mature developers.
“If, on the other hand, Flex is pitched to them and they love it, and start looking at code for flex+php/java/ruby and then see how extremely easy CF is maybe they’ll be more likely to give it a fair chance.” (Adam Fortuna)
Again, the wrong approach. By making Flex have different routines to call a CF server than a Java or PHP server Adobe is trying to pull people to their crappy backend product through their kinda cool frontend product. That’s a very Microsofty tactic, and it turns off serious developers, especially those interested in the open source mentality.
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