@tonyshowoff said:

I like C-style syntax, though, I find it easier to read, and the syntax isn't too dissimilar from cfScript from the looks of it, and in fact cfScript looks almost identical to JavaScript. Is it a reimplementation, just designed based on it, or is it compliant like ActionScript?

I'm mostly referring to the absolutely schizophrenicish naming of things, from what I remember from my PHP days. Underscores here, weird choices there, etc. One of the things that I adored about the move from PHP to CF is that I had to consult the docs so, so much less, because of the language design, it's extremely guessable a lot of the time, so as I was learning it I was literally able to just guess function names and they'd be right, instead of having to Google every 8 seconds.

@tonyshowoff said:

PHP's also a lot faster (primarily with opcaching)

Wait, what? Where did you hear that? I would bet money that I can take almost any PHP code you have, rewrite it in ColdFusion, and run it on identical hardware and have it just mercilessly dominate PHP's peformance. ColdFusion has a giant, beautiful array of caching options and uses Ehcache under the covers. I'd be interested to read what you read that made it sound like PHP can even hold a candle to Java performacewise. Didn't Facebook even write something to take their PHP, expressly because it's slow, and convert it to C++ or something?

@tonyshowoff said:

That was a reference to the fact that regular CF is similar to XML syntax.

That's my point. It's not. It's a lot closer to HTML than XML, hence its unparalleledly good integration with HTML.

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt said:

It's not vastly better. That's like saying that an airplane is "vastly better" than a helicopter. They're two different beasts with different purposes, they each do certain things extremely well.

But they are, airplanes can go further, faster, and higher than helicopters, and carry more weight. If you want to measure them differently, of course you can find reasons why each are their own beasts, but from a syntax perspective cfScript is better, and it (I assume) allows separation of concerns, where as the other is just mixed right in.

No, they're not. Airplanes are fantastic for transporting mass quantities of people across the globe, but they're terrible for maneuvering into tight spots and shuttling someone that's dying to a hospital, for example. Different problems, I promise.

@tonyshowoff said:

Edit: WebStorm does node.js well, that's what we use it for.

Downloading it as we speak btw, I'm excited. Looks like I picked up my license back in 2012, I might need to re-up.

@tonyshowoff said:

@scottalanmiller Me too, client side Java sucks. The first version of AOL AIM was coded in Java... Swing is so terrible.

Totally agree with you here. Any interface period w/ Java is just a nightmare . It's amazing as a serverware platform though, which is why 10,000 things all compile to Java now.

@scottalanmiller said:

I actually like Java on the server side. It's just Adobe on Java, it sounds bad.

Agreed. But Adobe didn't create it. They just acquired it when they bought Macromedia, along with a handful of other wares, like Dreamweaver. Someone buying something doesn't make it bad. I assure you it's still extremely good at what it does.

@scottalanmiller said:

Ruby does so optionally, CF is implemented solely that way it would appear.

Correct. CF compiles into Java and takes advantage of a ton of the J2EE advancements. The last few versions ship atop Tomcat. And if you like inefficiency, you can even drop into Java within ColdFusion. The point of ColdFusion is productivity. You can do more with less code, less time, and less people. It turns any good developer into a one-man army. It's worth every penny, and there's a reason it can afford to thrive and not be free like PHP, Ruby, and many other decent options.

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt Oh, no I wasn't, cfScript is vastly better. Admittedly my experience with CF is about 8 or so years out of date, but due to licensing, availability, and other issues I never consider it really. Full disclosure, I've always hated XML as well, and we use JSON or BSON for all of our transport/storage stuff in house where possible over XML. You may love ColdFusion, but I certainly do not, and I think that's fine.

It's not vastly better. That's like saying that an airplane is "vastly better" than a helicopter. They're two different beasts with different purposes, they each do certain things extremely well. I hate XML too. Good thing ColdFusion has literally nothing at all to do with XML except that it's able to parse, generate, and work with it extremely easily, the same way it can with JSON, and a zillion other things.

I guarantee you that if you and I sat down and created an identical product, and you saw that ColdFusion let me do it in about a third of the time it took you, and in a way that's actually more fun and flexible, you might love it too haha. I started out with PHP, which got me really excited about web development, and I still write PHP from time to time, helped my GF construct some objects from a MySQL query and serialize them to JSON in PHP the other day ( she was reimagining an example from a book she was reading ). When we were done we wrote the same code in ColdFusion, and it was something like 75% fewer lines of code. PHP has some strengths, but I've never met a PHP developer who could offer much more than "a lot of companies use it and there are a lot of things already written in PHP" as a competitive advantage. As far as the syntax, I mean Jesus. If you want to talk terrible syntax, PHP wins that contest by a mile.

@tonyshowoff Also, as far as licensing, I'm guessing you haven't heard of Railo. It's the free, open-source ColdFusion.

http://www.getrailo.org/

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt I don't disagree that it's faster to write, but from a syntax perspective the fact it doesn't stand out from HTML I don't consider an advantage. I also don't consider it an advantage that basically almost forces one into a position of not separating concerns. You can write more CF, but will it be better, faster, and more platform independent than my PHP? (Possibly faster than Ruby, depending on various things) Certainly not, and I'm also locked into Adobe's licensing schema as well, and I don't like that. In all though the syntax issue is a matter of preference, obviously, but I think my other concerns are founded.

Guessing you aren't familiar w/ cfScript, which is at the heart of ColdFusion. Though the tag language is appropriate and unparalleledly powerful for dynamic HTML generation and integration, the script equivalent is equally powerful and feature compatible.

So you can do

<loop query="q">
<!--- Dynamic html here --->
</loop>

to exploit the fluid, powerful integration with HTML.

But you can also do

function myUtil( arg1, arg2 ){
   return z;
}

It's not that dissimilar to Javascript, and can do everything PHP or Ruby does, with a syntax that lets people familiar w/ JS do powerful back end stuff with extraordinarily good performance out of the box. Not gonna lie, I love ColdFusion.

@tonyshowoff said:

Profiling, testing, better organisation of code, great version control, I can click and follow things, great refactoring support, way better suggestions based on the language and code you've written. It's endless, really, Sublime is basically a fancy highlighter, but better than Notepad++.

Ummmm, what? Better organization of code? What does that sentence mean to you?

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt Sorry, I was watching GoodFellas and not paying attention to what I was typing. I edited my post, I meant to say it was hard to read, it's definitely not hard to do.

I definitely don't consider it cutting edge at all, and the syntax to be just god awful. I'd say that node.js is cutting edge and it also does support WebSocket too (naturally). Plus WebSocket libraries are available with most major languages too, just because they're automatically included with CF (assuming) doesn't make it superior.

No, but it does instantly dismiss your labeling of it as non-modern, which was the point.

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

@tonyshowoff said:

Edit: WebStorm does node.js well, that's what we use it for.

Ah, of course it does. Forgot it was JS-centric. I'll have to check it out soon. What are some of the advantages it has over Sublime?

Context. It's an IDE rather than an advanced text editor. Auto-integrates with a lot of packages, code completion, remote execution, that kind of stuff.

The code completion in Sublime is impeccable, it also does code introspection and prompts you with your variable and method names, etc. Sublime is highly extensible and there are billions of packages that let you build your own IDE feature set in a few quick commands. Have you guys actually even used it?

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt Sorry, I was watching GoodFellas and not paying attention to what I was typing. I edited my post, I meant to say it was hard to read, it's definitely not hard to do.

I definitely don't consider it cutting edge at all, and the syntax to be just god awful. I'd say that node.js is cutting edge and it also does support WebSocket too (naturally). Plus WebSocket libraries are available with most major languages too, just because they're automatically included with CF (assuming) doesn't make it superior.

The syntax is its major competitive advantage hahaha, and what lets one CF developer do the work of 2-3 PHP devs in the same amount of time.. Ok, you definitely don't know what you're talking about. I was worried you did for a sec, that's a relief.

@tonyshowoff said:

Edit: WebStorm does node.js well, that's what we use it for.

Ah, of course it does. Forgot it was JS-centric. I'll have to check it out soon. What are some of the advantages it has over Sublime?

@tonyshowoff said:

@creayt Oh, I did consider maybe that was CF, but then I thought "well, maybe not" because it's hard. CF though, come on man, modernise!

What do you mean? ColdFusion is more cutting edge than PHP and Ruby combined in a lot of ways. I mean it has baked in WebSocket support bruh. A new version was released less than a year ago, the next version is under heavy development, and an update was released less than a month ago. Adobe pushes self-installing updates out over the air which keep it "modern" on a monthly basis. I'm guessing you don't really know much about it

@tonyshowoff said:

@scottalanmiller Yeah in house we use RubyMine, PhpStorm, and WebStorm. All awesome and increased productivity a lot.

I actually bought licenses for all 3 of those like a year ago hahaha. I haven't really made time to check them out, and I don't think JetBrains makes anything that supports my backend glue ( Node and ColdFusion ). Sublime Text is pretty amazing though.

@xByteSean and co., would be interested to get your feedback on this too if you have any. Thanks!