The platform, which dates back to 1995, anticipated many of the capabilities that later became part of J2EE and Microsoft .NET. As one of the first platforms for developing data-driven web applications, ColdFusion was instrumental in transforming the web experience from its origins as document server to data-interactive.
Known for its simplicity, the ColdFusion CFML markup language grew extremely popular with web developers. Consequently, while ColdFusion’s heyday as web application platform has passed, Adobe estimates that there are at least 300,000 to 400,000 active ColdFusion developers still writing apps.
ColdFusion 8 updates the platform with more extensive PDF integration. Before, you could generate PDF files, a feature that isn’t terribly unique. But version 8 adds capability to buikd a PDF-driven app, where you can extract data or populate a PDF document, generate a PDF form that can be filled out by the end user, and creating features like tables of contents.
And given that this is 2007, ColdFusion would be remiss if it didn’t add Ajax support. It now adds the capability to generate out the client side JavaScript UI components like tree controls, rich test editors, and windows, and it adds support of Adobe’s Spry Ajax framework.
While ColdFusion remains Java-based (which it’s been since version 6 in 2002), version 8 adds the ability to natively invoke .NET objects either in the same server (if a Windows machine), or remotely. In a sense, it marks a partial to return to its roots, as the pre-year 2000 versions of the ColdFusion web platform were written in C++ and based on Windows.
With the beta out this week, Adobe expects general release sometime in mid summer.
Our View
ColdFusion is definitely an oldie but goodie, and proof that being first to market can sometime be costly if it occurs before the market is ready. In fact, ColdFusion was one of the most popular web development platform sin its heyday, due to its ease of programming and the fact that it provided one of the first alternatives for anyone who wanted to make their web apps data-driven.
Bypassed by J2EE and .NET, most ColdFusion apps still sit behind firewalls, according to Adobe. Like most popular legacy systems, if they offer some unique value, they tend to stick around. How else to explain the continuing popularity of Borland/CodeGear’s Delphi? With several hundred thousand developers still active, ColdFusion might not be the hottest thing in town, but it’s not going away anytime soon.
