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ColdFusion MX: Macromedia’s Rapid Server Scripting Environment
ColdFusion 1.0 was launched in 1995 by the Allaire Corporation as the first Web application
server for Windows NT. It was conceived and designed specifically to help HTML programmers
create database-oriented web applications. Promising from the start, significant improvements
were made over the years leading to ColdFusion 5.0. The Allaire Corporation was acquired by
Macromedia in 2001 and since then ColdFusion has been integrated with Macromedia’s
industry-leading development software – Dreamweaver and Flash. Today, the latest
version is called ColdFusion MX, which is part of the Macromedia MX “family” - an
integrated suite of products that is designed to streamline the creation and delivery
of everything from simple websites to Rich Internet Applications. The "MX" moniker is
not an acronym and doesn't have a literal translation. "MX" simply designates ColdFusion
MX as a major new release and part of the Macromedia MX product family which also includes
Macromedia Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, Director MX, Macromedia Flash
Communication Server MX and Macromedia Studio MX.
One of the greatest features of ColdFusion is its simple, tag-based scripting language
called ColdFusion Markup Language or CFML. What makes CFML great is that it’s very easy
for developers to learn because they are already used to working with tag-based HTML.
That allows ColdFusion applications to be written faster, even by developers with less
experience. CFML is simple and very intuitive, reducing common web functions - like
accessing a database - into single CFML tags. Compare that with several lines of code
that are required with PHP or ASP. ColdFusion also handles low-level programming tasks
automatically and simplifies code reuse. In addition to over 75 tags and 240 built-in
functions, CFML allows developers to extend the language by creating their own custom
tags or userdefined functions, or by integrating COM, Java/C++ and Java components. With
the release of ColdFusion MX, Macromedia now offers developers next generation architecture
that allows deployment of ColdFusion applications on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
servers, including Macromedia JRun, IBM Websphere, BEA WebLogic and Sun One.
There are other key advantages to ColdFusion MX such as its comprehensive feature set
including built-in graphing and charting functions and Verity search engine. ColdFusion
MX is also supported on Solaris, Linux, Windows and HP-UX with code compatability between
platforms. Another big advantage is how reliably it is supposed to scale to heavy loads.
Unfortunately, ColdFusion MX was initially not very reliable and a big disappointment
for developers who upgraded from ColdFusion 5.0. And a lot of developers made the switch
as soon as MX was released because Macromedia slashed the cost to license MX ($795) to
almost half the cost of version 5.0 ($1295). The big problem was instability arising from
the change from 5.0’s ColdFusion Server to MX’s JRun Server. Macromedia has since released
a couple of updates to ColdFusion MX that have apparently fixed the initial problems with
it – but not before a lot of developer headaches. Macromedia has now raised the licensing
cost to $1295 for ColdFusion MX, which is about the only real downside we can see compared
with other competing platforms that are less expensive. There is a freeware version of
ColdFusion MX available but its features are limited.
If you are interested in ColdFusion Hosting, check out our
ColdFusion Showcase section and browse ColdFusion Hosting packages offered by today’s leading primary hosting providers.
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