I have been working with PHP for a while now and while not a pro I am intermediate. So the question I am asking is not relating to how to use PHP. I have come with an idea for a website....I don't know what category it would fall in but it is closer to a social networking site. My question is which one would be better for me to use on the website. I know PHP is very powerful but I would like to take full advantage of flash JAVA .NET and so on. I have never used ColdFusion but if it is the better software I am willing to learn it for this project. Thanks Worldman P.S also how long would it take for me to learn it....as in to an intermediate stage?
I basically started out with absolutely no web design experience. I didn't even know what HTML was two years ago. But like you I had an Idea for a social network site and decided I was going to make it happen. I jumped right into Coldfusion because is was available to me. I think that Coldfusion is more intuitive than other server languages and even javascript and actionscript. I haven't spent nearly as much time decoding any other scripts, Which is why I think that Coldfusion is easy to learn. You can check out my project web site www.unitedlocalbands.com . It is built totally on CFMX7 server. Of course there are lots of pieces of javascript that I didn't wright and HTML, XML, flex2, actionscript. If you need any help, just post your question and I'm sure one of us will have an answer or at least a link to a website that may have what you need.
worldman - I learned ColdFusion 5 years ago. My boss bought me a Ben Forta book (forta.com) and that was my training. I had to code a entire working website with backend administration for about 10 users with multi-level security. My first model was pretty crude, but I had it working in 1 month. I am by no means a advanced ColdFusion programmer, but basic database concepts and dataflow is pretty simple to do with ColdFusion. If you have coded in PHP and are ok at it, ColdFusion should be a breeze for you.
I would say that basic procedural ColdFusion should be a breeze for you. However, don't just settle for that. IMO, the accessibility of ColdFusion, allowing *anyone* to write bad code, while seemingly a possitive, is also its Achilles' heel in many respects. I suggest that as you learn, you experiment with some of the more common design patterns and best practices that have evolved into more of a standard in the past 3-4 years. OOP development is now expected for the top-tier CF developers, and I rarely work with anyone that doesn't use some type of MVC framework, be it Mach-II, Model Glue, FB, CB, etc... Also, things that used to seem fringe to the masses such as using ColdSpring for dependency injection are starting to become standard tools for everyday developers now. I would recommend following the blogs you see on fullasagoog.com, feedsquirrel.com, and MXNA ( http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna/ ) to keep a good pulse on all the good stuff going on in the ColdFusion space, and don't be afraid to ask the "gurus" noob questions. The ColdFusion community is really helpful and friendly by and large.
Thanks guys for all the answers. One last question and this is a "noob" question Is it possible to change a site that was coded in PHP and stuff (we're talking about a website with user access and such) to ColdFusion while still maintaining the databases and such?
If you're good, than you should have no problem. A database is language independent. You should be able to manipulate it the same way regardless of the language used.
Thanks for the tips. I was just not certain if ColdFusion might require some type of special database configuration seeing most people who use it prefer Microsoft SQL or Oracle above MySQL.
Probably because those are "enterprise" level databases, and are paid software, just like Coldfusion.
Not sure I agree with you on that one worldman. All our our projects use MySQL, and the majority of the contracts I work do as well. Big enterprise shops tend to lean towards SQL Server, as they tend to think that how much they spend somehow translates into how solid their application is. However, over the past 3-4 years, I am starting to see more enterprise shops realize the power of MySQL and many are actually making use of clustering, etc. There are some big ass apps running on MySQL these days!
Well you're the expert so you're probably right. I have noticed that whenever a company was planning to use ColdFusion they usually asked for an enterprise SQL database. But than again times are changing. Who would have thought that Yahoo and CNN would adopt opensource Wordpress?
CF is easy to learn and use...many of the employees from a company I worked for got use to that pretty fast....of course, until you write quality code time will pass...but at least you get up to speed faster than in PHP (my opinion)...
I hear that with PHP since you have pre made codes and such that you can use I guess that's the advantage. But I've been doing a little with ColdFusion and it seems pretty easy to learn. Two sites that I've been checking out its features vs. PHP is Myspace (which uses ColdFusion) and Facebook (which uses PHP).
Myspace uses a combination of Coldfusion and ASP.NET (they thansitioned from CF to ASP.NET and still in transition). And because of this they run Bluedragon.Net servers (which can run CF and ASP.NET code on the same web server). See here: http://www.fusionauthority.com/comm...myspace-com-an-interview-with-new-atlanta.htm To further more see how Myspace works (worked) take a peek here: http://highscalability.com/myspace-architecture
Don't compare websites to learn about which language to use. This is highly inaccurate. Myspace has/had crap coding, but this has nothing to do with the language, it comes down to the programmer. Again, I can't stress this enough, I hate seeing threads where people compare languages according to what popular websites use. Also, I have no clue what "pre-made code" means. What exactly are you referring to?
Than that's true for about every language. PHP has more libraries and frameworks, because with just a default PHP install, it falls way behind any language.
Yes I know its pretty bad but I know I've heard programmer said they have problem integrating certain things like Flash and such with PHP depending on the project. The major advantage I see with PHP is that it has a wider userbase at the moment than ColdFusion. And it cost less $$$ to upkeep a PHP site than a ColdFusion site.