Slashdot Mirror
ColdFusion MX on Mac OS X
kylner writes "This seemed to be one of the lesser-covered news items at Macworld, but it seems that Macromedia has decided to release its JRun 4 J2EE Server for Mac OSX. What's siginificant about this release? Well, they simultaneously released Macromedia ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers to go with it! It may not be a stand-alone edition of ColdFusion MX, but this is still a dream item for any ColdFusion developer with a Mac at home. It took me about 30 minutes to install on my iBook 600 (I messed up a few times since it requires a little terminal work) but once I got it up and running it just worked. All I've had time to do so far is create a variable and output 'Hello World', but so far so good."
The developer wanted to use ColdFusion, and not PHP. Don't get me wrong, I know and love PHP (not as much as I love Perl, mind you, but still.), but there are times when... a little diversity is a good thing. Say for instance, you're developing something with a team of people, none of which know PHP, but do know ColdFusion as a common language among them. Are you either going to try and teach them PHP (something they may not want to learn, if they haven't ventured off to do it on their own, yet) or just get the project done with ColdFusion. If it works, it works, and it's good. The first priority is getting the job done, then going over semantics. If the customer or supervisor wants the task re-done in PHP, over ColdFusion, then so be it. Different tools for different jobs, but keep in mind, There's More Than One Way To Do It . :-)
Informatus Technologicus
The reason ColdFusion can be ported easily now is because CFMX was rewritten in Java. now all Macromedia has to do is port their JRun server and voila, ColdFusion is ready to work. Keep in mind that you don't need to run JRun specifically to use ColdFusion; any java web server will work.
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
I tried to move away from ColdFusion and start using JSP or PHP. But it's like moving from a Mac to wintel machines... ugh ugh ugh. I came back like 3 times (tried PHP, went back to CFML, tried JSP, went back to CFML and tried PHP again and went back again). The ease of use of CFML beats anything that's out there. I'm glad they're porting CFMX to Mac (although they could make the installation process easier)... They go well together...
I AM running Apache with PHP installed, and I am working on learning how to develop with PHP. However, my first foray into web app development was with ColdFusion. Additonally, the site I work for hosts under ColdFusion. I'll be the first to say that PHP isn't that difficult to learn, but if I hadn't been introduced to ColdFusion (arguably easier to learn than PHP from a noob's standpoint) and gotten some background in development I'd probably still be smashing my skull against a wall. At the end of the day it's about using the right instrument for the job- and now that I have two web scripting environments running on my dev box I can actually make the attempt to write an app/site using both as an exercise to keep my skills cross-platform.
Agreed. If you have a programmer's background then PHP should be absolute cake since it seems to have a very Perl-esque syntax. But I started as an art major and moved into web graphic design right out of college. However, for someone with more of a graphic art/web design background I found CFML far more intuitive to use and learn. As a result I found that I had a better understanding of how PHP works when I took a second look at it.