Lol!! Coldfusion + Adobe = Excelent! ASP.NET + Microsoft + VS 2008 = Bullshit! I don't know if there something that Coldfusion can do that ASP.net cannot do it, ASP.net is a much complete language, but its microsoft... just brand... I preffer Java, its a powerfull language, much better than microsoft bullshit....
Flash remoting to flex out of the box Create a PDF in 3 lines of code. Invoke java objects in 1 line of code ( no idea is .NET can do this ). Not to mention that you can use .NET classes from cf Talk to ms exchange easier then .NET can Verity Searching image manipulation in 1 line of code Flash forms. Of course some of this can be done in .NET but with much more work I imagine.
just to take microsoft's side, asp.net has a very nice seperation of code from the design of the page. the master pages is very powerfull. asp.net has also been proved to run faster than php, and has better perfomance with ms sql server than php and mysql. this is mostly because it is compiled work, which also means less code. this makes it the ideal language for most busnesses and enterprise level sites. on the down side, asp.net formly can only run on windows, iis server, although there is the mod mono that is suppose to be stable enough for production. it runs on Apace server. Coldfusion has to be my favorite language, it has full pdf integration, it is the easiest language to program. in my opinion, it is the most feature complete lang. code is very html like. downside is it does not have the best performance. it is also the most expensive. there is a new version coming out, Coldfusion 9. it is suppose to have performance improvements. i think adobe is working in a coldfusion builder like an IDE. its exiting PHP. this is probably the most popular and most suitable for personal sites, communities... it is very easy to learn, not as easy as coldfusion in my opinion. because it is community powered, it is very cheap to maintain. i have seen this language used in enterprise level applications a lot. There is very little that i know about j2ee. a few things that i know is that it is very alike to asp.net but complex or harder to program. i have seen it more often than php in high traffic sites. I am still confused on what language to chose. i really need pdf. but coldfusion is expensive. also, i am still trying to understand these anti Microsoft choises.
Take a look at Railo it can do nearly everything ColdFusion can and it can produce PDF's. Toe code is the same as ColdFusion code and guess what its free: http://www.getrailo.com
Wel. My Suggestion is there is no match to Coldfusion. It just rocks. But to stay in Job market. ASP.NET is essential and much in demand rather than Coldfusion
Um, are you serious? ColdFusion is by far more expandalbe then any other language I have ever written in. You can freaking write C++ in coldfusion. ask yourself can ASP.NET do that? What about the fact that you can write charts, pdfs on the fly with cf and it takes enourmous amounts of time to that in asp.