Andrew's ramblings

Is ColdFusion dead, Adobe says no

Tags: General, Coldfusion

Every now and then the rumour mill starts with people saying that ColdFusion is Dead, and if Adobe has anything to say about it the application called ColdFusion will survive. Adobe has made a very committed road map to integrate a lot of their products, ColdFusion is in essence a core piece of this plan.

However there is something that we all can not ignore, and will Adobe address this or leave it by the wayside?

The first thing to take into consideration is that the language that is labelled as CFML will never die, could Adobe loose market share in their quest to provide satisfaction to their shareholders.

The answer is yes they could, they could very much begin to loose market share. And who says they aren't already, in the last 12 months Adobe has shed a staggering 15+% of their work force to keep their shareholders happy, and to make sure that they are on track to deliver a 2010 profit forecast.

You might be wondering how this has anything to do with ColdFusion dying, well ColdFusion as a product from Adobe could die, but it wont happen if Adobe wakes up to the market changes. And by that I mean by what is important to the developer.

But before I go into that, lets look at the very public announcement by Hal Helms, that he is moving on to do develop with Ruby on Rails.

Hal makes some very good points in his latest blog post, but the one thing he points out is how long it takes to get up and running with something substantial in ColdFusion. Although I have never played with Ruby on Rails, I have played with grails and continue to develop with this language.

And the one thing that I find great, in the same manner Hal does with RoR is a few things.

* Very quick to install

* Very quick to get an application running

* Extremely easy to pull in 3rd party plugins

* Mix n Match its underlying technology, which is java.

* Conforms to a specific way of development.

I could go on about this and many more features that makes grails great, but I am and will always be at the moment a ColdFusion developer.

So what is important to the ColdFusion developer?

The most important thing for a developer is how easy it is to install, ColdFusion does a good job at this but it doesn't do a great job and hasn't for about 10+ years.

Why is that.

It is because the installer tries to configure everything you like based on the settings you provide it in the installer, but it is not perfect. If I want to install it into another Application server, I would prefer to just download the war file and use the Application Server to then install it. If anyone has a .Net service running when creating a war file will no exactly what I mean by this, especially if the war file you wish to create from the ColdFusion installer is greater in the version number you are wanting to create.

Another thing that is important to us is getting up and developing quickly, the likes of grails (and I will assume RoR is the same here) I have a built in MVC, I can create a controller and no view and still be able to run my application.

To me this is what I call RAD (Rapid Application Development), and fits well in the world of Agile development as well. If you are not familiar with Agile development, then you are missing out on a lot nad ColdFusion is at this date way beyond recognising anything Agile.

I personally do not call an Application that is feature rich under the hood as being a RAD application. And this is what ColdFusion is marketed as, and yes if you need those features it does save you time and money. But what if you don't need those features, would it still be RAD?

The answer is no it is not.

How does ColdFusion compare to the competition?

In essence this will depend on what you are going to compare it too!

If you compare it to the likes of RoR and grails then it is going to loose hands down, if you are going to compare it to the likes of ASP.Net or perl, php to name a few then it is going to shine.

The biggest problem for ColdFusion is going to be the Agile market, and this is where I know the likes of grails will shine, and by the sounds of it Ruby on Rails too.

Is this the end of ColdFusion?

Never, it is as simple as that. But the real question is how long is it going to be before Adobe, will bridge the gap between the competitors and ColdFusion!

Now I would like to add something here too, Adobe can't be held for the current state of ColdFusion, as it was set in stone well and truly before they got their hands on it. But the number one problem now is, should Adobe remain backward compatible or move forward?

My answer would be move forward.

Must frameworks I have worked with in ColdFusion, as well as other applications and languages. If you begin to use them, there is a migration path that says to you, if you developed in this manner, be wary that in the future we no longer will support it. This is usually deprecated things, or changes to the application to enable it to move forward.

ColdFusion doesn't follow this, it follows the premise that if you wrote something in ColdFusion 4 or ColdFusion 5 and want to upgrade to ColdFusion 10, it should still work. This is not always a bad thing, but there is a time when one has to make a decision to say sorry but it will no longer work because it will not fit into our Road Map. Microsoft is very good at this, and they even provide a migration path, as bad as it has been since I last used it, it was still god enough to get my application into the path forward.

Am I a ColdFusion evangelist or do I just like to bag ColdFusion?

Till the day I die I will remain an evangelist, but I don't have to always agree with those who are actively promoting ColdFusion now either and after 14 years developing in ColdFusion I am well versed in its short comings and how it hasn't progressed to match the market. It is within my rights to also point out problems with the language that I thing should or even could be fixed to make my job easier.

Since Adobe purchased Macromedia the one thing that I can say is that the communication in the community has improved, and I think that it will only continue to get better as well. But the one thing that you can't ignore is those who see you as an ignorant person, who's sole purpose is to bag the language. Well here is my answer to those people, there is a world out there that say I need a tool that is easy to use, quick to install, provides me with Rapid Application Development and the community is supportive whether you make good or bad comments about the Application.

And I do not wish to see so called evangelists send people to back them up either, if you are a true evangelist you can defend yourself.

In closing

If I did not end up in the job I am in, I personally would be doing all my development in grails. I do see how Adobe are beginning to make their applications become very tied into each other, but the cost to  any developer and any organisation is going  to kill them. As much as I believe in the integration of illustration, and design into backend development, the only thing I can say is Adobe can learn a lot from Microsoft.

Oh that reminds me before I forget, this is very important.

Adobe is loosing market share to who!!

They are loosing market share to open source products, or they are loosing to Microsoft who is  offering partnership deals. Partnership is a key to a business decision, and something that Adobe can lay testament too, after all Adobe cut over 15% of their workforce to stay alive and provide a way for their shareholders to continue to make money. And if Adobe even had anything similar to Microsoft, a partner or developer or even a start-up could get going with less than $300 USD in software outlays, this is not the case with Adobe.

If Adobe offered a program like Microsoft, then companies would be saying who is offering more. Until then Adobe will continue to loose market share, which is a shame. Because their current road map is beyond a doubt profitable, but only if there is a significant restructure.