Macromedia Coldfusion

What exactly is it?

[webboy1]

Hi,

I have heard it mentioned a lot, but can anyone explain to me exactly what it is? i.e .is it Macromedia's equivalent of Microsofts SQL Server? Or is it completely different?

Just a short explanation of what it is and what it can do would be cool,

Cheers
Webboy

[Andrew Thomas]

I think its more of an extension to IIS or other platforms. Coldfusion Server is more of a management console, you need it if you are using coldfusion components.

You administrate you sites, connect to databases, Access, SQL etc, and can setup load balancing, security etc etc.

maybe some one more expert in this field could provide more info

Andy

[chiyo]

I'm no expert, but I think it is just a programming language just like asp or Perl or PHP, server side. It is mainly used for building dynamic pages, and usually with a database. Unlike the others however it is prorietary. It is marketed as being very easy to use and reliable. cold fusion pages on the net usually have a .cfm inclusion.

Whenever we ran into a problem with our perl or other scripts, our host would always say "too difficult!" - use cold fusion - it's modern and perl is so "yesterday". Of course we had to pay an extra hosting fee per month to use it! We left that host pretty quick and went for a host that made it much easier to user perl and php.

[Andrew Thomas]

yes chiyo, you are right,

I was just talking about the Coldfusion Server, that you need to run coldfusion with.

eg coldfusion 5 is run on the local machine for development (like asp)

Colfusion Server is installed on the server, and makes the program run (eg it recognises all the CF tags etc)

Andy

[webboy1]

From what you guys have said, i think any doubts have been quashed. I already use SQL, MySQL, ASP and PHP to build my pages, so it sounds as if Coldfusion is just another way to sort of do what the they can do.

Thanks anyway, Was curious.

[nvision]

wow, if you read that discussion title fast it looks like "Macromedia CONfusion" :)

[edit_g]

Just as a footnote- using Coldfusion is a lot easier, and in many ways just as powerful (if not more), than PHP, ASP and .net.