3 ms·

is coldfusion still a thing in 2017?

internalfx 9y ago
apparently.
neokoenig 9y ago
Personally, I've found the Open source version, http://lucee.org/ http://lucee.org/ to be preferable to Adobe ColdFusion, although Adobe have at least committed to supporting it until at least 2025. (see http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/coldfusion/pdfs/cf2016/Roadmap_for_Adobe_ColdFusion.pdf http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/cold... )
brixon 9y ago
I doubt there are many new companies starting to use CF, but it was a good option in 2001 when CF5 came out when compared to PHP4, ASP3, or CGI from those days. Companies that have a decade of CF code is not going to just replace it all because it is not the cool flavor of the week. It works and generally does an OK job. It has always been an approachable language to people that don't program full time. It looks and feels like HTML, so novice programmers were productive fairly quickly in CF. Career programmers tend to not like it since it is verbose and restrictive, but I have know numerous people use CF as a jumping point for programming and IT careers solving company problems with a bit of code.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  Legacy code is a thing. I fear the merging of template and logic that CF encouraged (and I don't think it's currently discouraged enough) results in hard to test and hard to reutilize code. Since hard to test and, hence, untestable codebases are the hardest to migrate, I'd assume web applications that depend too much on Cold Fusion (or PHP, ASP or Model 1 JSP) will remain in those technologies until the whole thing is rewritten from scratch.
  - Semiapies 9y ago
    True for a lot of a lot of older stuff. But, on the CF apps I've been supporting, I've been reworking things to minimize the actual CF component, reducing it to APIs as much as possible. I suspect I'm not the only coder setting up to move away fast once Adobe drops it.
  - cicloid 9y ago
    And now we have JSX
  - neokoenig 9y ago
    CFWheels uses RoR MVC concepts, so separation from data/logic/display as you'd expect. This (major) second version has it's own built in test suite for TDD, RESTful routing etc, and the whole core has been written in CFScript which is "tag free". My point being that any modern CFML web app can easily engage with best practice development - that's of course not to say there aren't a lot of legacy apps out there as you rightly mention.
    - brixon 9y ago
      I'm not knocking CF, it put food on my dinner plate for many years. I used to use fusebox (MVC with all the terms renamed) and had manageable code. I could knock out a CF based web app much faster than I can today with C# ASP.NET. The only reason we switched was the availability of developers willing to work on CF. You can find C# people everywhere.
- bdw429s 9y ago
  According to a recent survey by Adobe, 75% of fortune 100's are using CFML and 70% of their CF base are building new applications in it. They have a steady stream of new licenses being purchased, and according to the latest W3Techs data, CF usage in the wild is actually climbing. (Whereas Java, .NET, and Ruby usage is dropping) https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-coldfusion/all/all https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-coldfusion/all/a... I use CF daily as my primary programming language, and I can assure you it's still a great option in terms of productivity and scalability in 2017.
bdcravens 9y ago
It has a lot of use in government and health care. I can't speak to his current projects, but Pud was still using it on some of his recent startups.
- harel 9y ago
  Fu£@*dcompany was a CF site.
bdw429s 9y ago
Yes it is. Very much so actually. CFML has been a dynamic and loosely typed JVM language since before that was cool (~2002). It is reported by W3Techs as the 4th most popular web language on the internet today (behind PHP, .NET, and Java). Wow, amazing that Ruby, Node, and Clojure all aren't as popular as CFML for server side code still! CFML has open source engines like Lucee Server, and a modern arsenal of tooling including CLI, REPL, package management, MVC, IDE plugins, conferences around the world, and active support forums like our Slack team with 2.2K people in it. CF's modern scripting syntax reads like JavaScript and includes function programming, closures, and classical OO constructs. It sounds like you need to check it out again. Everything I listed above has been around for years in the CF space.
bdcravens 9y ago
Just noticed a link in another article on the front page about Tesla: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388034) http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 (third-party site, but interesting nonetheless)

apparently.

Personally, I've found the Open source version, http://lucee.org/ http://lucee.org/ to be preferable to Adobe ColdFusion, although Adobe have at least committed to supporting it until at least 2025. (see http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/coldfusion/pdfs/cf2016/Roadmap_for_Adobe_ColdFusion.pdf http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/cold... )

brixon 9y ago

I doubt there are many new companies starting to use CF, but it was a good option in 2001 when CF5 came out when compared to PHP4, ASP3, or CGI from those days. Companies that have a decade of CF code is not going to just replace it all because it is not the cool flavor of the week. It works and generally does an OK job. It has always been an approachable language to people that don't program full time. It looks and feels like HTML, so novice programmers were productive fairly quickly in CF. Career programmers tend to not like it since it is verbose and restrictive, but I have know numerous people use CF as a jumping point for programming and IT careers solving company problems with a bit of code.

rbanffy 9y ago
Legacy code is a thing. I fear the merging of template and logic that CF encouraged (and I don't think it's currently discouraged enough) results in hard to test and hard to reutilize code. Since hard to test and, hence, untestable codebases are the hardest to migrate, I'd assume web applications that depend too much on Cold Fusion (or PHP, ASP or Model 1 JSP) will remain in those technologies until the whole thing is rewritten from scratch.
- Semiapies 9y ago
  True for a lot of a lot of older stuff. But, on the CF apps I've been supporting, I've been reworking things to minimize the actual CF component, reducing it to APIs as much as possible. I suspect I'm not the only coder setting up to move away fast once Adobe drops it.
- cicloid 9y ago
  And now we have JSX
- neokoenig 9y ago
  CFWheels uses RoR MVC concepts, so separation from data/logic/display as you'd expect. This (major) second version has it's own built in test suite for TDD, RESTful routing etc, and the whole core has been written in CFScript which is "tag free". My point being that any modern CFML web app can easily engage with best practice development - that's of course not to say there aren't a lot of legacy apps out there as you rightly mention.
  - brixon 9y ago
    I'm not knocking CF, it put food on my dinner plate for many years. I used to use fusebox (MVC with all the terms renamed) and had manageable code. I could knock out a CF based web app much faster than I can today with C# ASP.NET. The only reason we switched was the availability of developers willing to work on CF. You can find C# people everywhere.
bdw429s 9y ago
According to a recent survey by Adobe, 75% of fortune 100's are using CFML and 70% of their CF base are building new applications in it. They have a steady stream of new licenses being purchased, and according to the latest W3Techs data, CF usage in the wild is actually climbing. (Whereas Java, .NET, and Ruby usage is dropping) https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-coldfusion/all/all https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-coldfusion/all/a... I use CF daily as my primary programming language, and I can assure you it's still a great option in terms of productivity and scalability in 2017.

bdcravens 9y ago

It has a lot of use in government and health care. I can't speak to his current projects, but Pud was still using it on some of his recent startups.

harel 9y ago
Fu£@*dcompany was a CF site.

bdw429s 9y ago

Yes it is. Very much so actually. CFML has been a dynamic and loosely typed JVM language since before that was cool (~2002). It is reported by W3Techs as the 4th most popular web language on the internet today (behind PHP, .NET, and Java). Wow, amazing that Ruby, Node, and Clojure all aren't as popular as CFML for server side code still! CFML has open source engines like Lucee Server, and a modern arsenal of tooling including CLI, REPL, package management, MVC, IDE plugins, conferences around the world, and active support forums like our Slack team with 2.2K people in it. CF's modern scripting syntax reads like JavaScript and includes function programming, closures, and classical OO constructs. It sounds like you need to check it out again. Everything I listed above has been around for years in the CF space.

bdcravens 9y ago

Just noticed a link in another article on the front page about Tesla: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388034) http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1042449 (third-party site, but interesting nonetheless)