Coldfusion is NOT an Application Server

Tags: Coldfusion

I just wanted to post this as a clarification to a post that was made in the cfaussie mailing list. A thread that begun as ColdFusion is not a programming language.

Well the fact is ColdFusion is technically a scripting language, defined as a markup language.

So why do I say that ColdFusion is not an Application Server, by definition it could be classed as one. The reason is that it needs something else to run the compiled code, or the package if it is a distributed war/ear.

Even though it is compiled to java, it still needs something else to have it deliver content to the web. These applications are what are called Application Servers, and these Applications are IIS, Apache, Tomcat, JBoss and WebSphere to name just a few.

Yes I said IIS and Apache, because the definition of an Application server is what they are.

And the thing is without these Applications ColdFusion can not do its job, and that is to compile content to be delivered via these mechanisms.


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  • Dale Fraser's Gravatar This is just wrong, just because you don't clasify it as an Application Server, doesn't mean that it isn't.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_ColdFusion
    the coldfusion entry states, cough first line " ColdFusion is an application server"

    And if you still don't believe it, try searching the Adobe site for ColdFusion Application Server.
    9,210 Matches

    Or

    Damon Cooper's blog
    http://www.dcooper.org/Blog/client/index.cfm?mode=...
    "ColdFusion defined a new market space when it was released in 1995. Today, the web application server holds an important place in Adobe's developer product portfolio."

    The 74,300 entries on Google for "ColdFusion Application Server" might help also.
    # Posted By Dale Fraser | 5/5/08 10:35 AM
  • Andrew Scott's Gravatar So my CPU by definition is an Application server:-)

    Serioulsy, Coldfusion is by definition a servlet. A bunch of libraries to write an Application, that requires a TRUE Application Server to deliver the content back to the caller that requested the content.

    Coldfusion on its own can't deliver content back to anything.
    # Posted By Andrew Scott | 5/5/08 11:19 AM
  • Mike Henke's Gravatar @Dale - umm, wikipedia states above your cited wikipeda text "This article is about the computer programming language."
    # Posted By Mike Henke | 5/5/08 11:46 AM
  • Dale Fraser's Gravatar @mike,

    Well we have come full circle haven't we, even andrew will agree that ColdFusion is not a programming language, CFML is the language. ColdFusion is the server. Some would say an "Application Server".

    That reference is there just to highlight that the article is not refering to the other Cold Fusion.
    # Posted By Dale Fraser | 5/5/08 1:09 PM
  • Andrew Scott's Gravatar @Dale - I have had this debate once before, Sean Corfield has agreed and defended Coldfusion as a scipting language. Even the evangelists will tell you Coldfusion is a scipting language, not a programming language by definition.

    But it is not an Application Server, sorry I am not going to bow down to that. Even as a product, as you mentioned elsewhere, JRun is required to serve Coldfusion. And I doubt anyone would agree that one would want to run one Application Server on top of another Application Server.
    # Posted By Andrew Scott | 5/5/08 1:56 PM
  • Dale Fraser's Gravatar The whole scripting vs programming debate is lost on me, I think of a scripting language as something you run through a parser, it execlutes line by line. Like per perl. But im probably wrong as CF doesn't do that and the do call it CFSCRIPT
    # Posted By Dale Fraser | 5/11/08 9:30 PM

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