Is ColdFusion still viable?

[scgcarguy]

How large a user base is there for Coldfusion? I see that WebmasterWorld has a forum for PHP, but nothing for ASP or ColdFusion.

I've looked at various CF custom tags on many sites and it seems that people stopped developing CF Custom tags in about 2004.

What gives?

Thanks

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], scgcarguy!

there is a forum for ASP:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[LifeinAsia]

it seems that people stopped developing CF Custom tags in about 2004.

Not true- people upload new tags very frequently on Adobe's Cold Fusion Exchange site [adobe.com]

I've been developing in CF for 10 years now, with no plans to quit.

There's definitely a larger base of ASP & PHP developers. And I can't recall recently hearing of a PHP or ASP site converting to CF, whereas I have heard of migrations in the other direction.

[scgcarguy]

I've looked at the Adobe Cold Fusion Exchange site and most of the tags there are fairly old. There's also a fair amount of broken links.

[LifeinAsia]

Actually, I haven't looked around there for a while and you're right- not a whole lot of activity. Their discussion boards still seem to be fairly active though.

[savant]

Many people use ColdFusion but I am thinking that PHP is a better more universal choice and it is free.

[webfoo]

I understand that Cold Fusion is poorly supported on a lot of web hosts. PHP is a much better choice - Avoid A$P at all costs.

[Mander]

Why would you want to avoid ASP so much? And why are you saying that it's so expensive? Truth is, ASP doesn't cost anything to learn, the only costs involved are the ones for hosting. Plus, you got a LOT of support for ASP, maybe not as much as for PHP, but sufficient to solve most problems. Open-sourceness is not an argument either, as parts of the code for ASP.Net have been made available.My point is, there is no reason to keep away from one language or another - the best solution might be to gain as much knowledge as possible. If you plan on hosting anything on IIS, ASP.Net might be better for you. Another thing is, PHP and ASP.Net are not that different, especially with c#.net. I am not a fan of microsoft, I don't even use windows, but to say 'i won't learn that because it's $' feels pretty unlogical.

[webfoo]

The reason I am against ASP is because it runs on Windows Servers only. Windows is an unstable platform for a server. I am not anti-Microsoft, I use and love Windows at a workstation, however Linux is best for servers.

ASP has a ridiculously complicated code structure, is difficult to learn, is inefficient on the server. Unfortunately, lots of people use it anyway. I always run into problems when I (try to) use ASP.

PHP, (the best choice) is easy to learn, has a simple code structure, and is very efficient on the server. PHP has never done me wrong. It is open source so improvements are being made by all the DEVELOPERS - not by a few people at Microsoft.

But please stop arguing about PHP versus ASP on a ColdFusion forum.