SOTR: ColdFusion is Dead, or is it?

May 1, 2009 · 8 Comment s

Every year, there is a story that sparks another "ColdFusion is Dead" debate.

Peter Elst, a name very well known in the Flash Community, challenged the last such story by another well known Flash Community Gugu; Aral Balkan.

As part of his efforts to rebuke Aral's claims, Peter has accepted the challenge of finding out whether ColdFusion really is dead and will present his findings at Scotch.

In the build up to Scotch on the Road: London, where Peter will present, he has been looking at everything and anything to do with ColdFusion, speaking with people who have an opinion on ColdFusion, and he will talk a little about his own challenges with the technology and why he hasn't used ColdFusion for his projects.

A brave man indeed to take on such a challenge, but we think this will be one of the best sessions at Scotch.

Book your ticket for Scotch now!

Tags: ColdFusion · Scotch on the Rocks · Conferences

8 response s so far ↓

1 Davo // May 1, 2009 at 6:17 PM

Yaaaaawwwwwn! OK, seriously, why even bother? This kind of topic was semi-debatable at CF 7, but at this stage, it's quite obvious that people who resort to "<technology> is dead" blog posts in order to get attention clearly weren't hugged enough as children.

If you're competing for business (and who isn't these days) wouldn't you WANT your competition to be using a "dead end" technology with no "skill transfer" to any other technology? Wouldn't you want that?

Personally, I use that same "dying" technology to kick the ever living shit outta MY competition, so, you'll excuse me if I don't really care what the not-hugged-enough bloggers of the world say.

Here's a suggestion, instead of trying to defend the platform, go on the offensive. Cancel this presentation and host one called "How to kick your competition in the balls....using ColdFusion".
2 Gavy // May 2, 2009 at 6:25 AM

Hi, Bottom line is this:

Coldfusion is not dead and Coldfusion will never Die.

That's the bottom line, and i must say taking this argument further will frustrate other Developors.

That's It.
3 Andy Allan // May 2, 2009 at 4:16 PM

You guys knows CF ain't dead. I know CF ain't dead. Unfortunately there are a lot of managers who don't believe their developers, and gather their facts from the media, and conferences. This session is primarily for them.

This sort of session, whilst it may make less sense in the US for example, is very important in Europe where ColdFusion has been a long lost child of Adobe's, and previously Macromedia's. Things are changing thanks to Claude Englebert but there's a lot more work to be done, and this session, given by one of the Flash community's biggest names, who also happens to be a non-CF developer, is a very good move.

There is no point in me standing up and preaching to the choir that CF rocks. I know it and the audience know it. What we have is an outsider from the community who has, not quite caught the CF bug, but has had his interest sparked and he wants to find out more. And in doing so he's going to report on it. And not to the choir. But to the managers, the guys who hold the purse strings and make the decisions about spending money.

We're trying to reach broader audiences, and this, along with our technology amnesty where we're letting non-CF developers in for free is just part of that plan.
4 CFDev // May 3, 2009 at 3:06 AM

Surely you can think of a better topic to post on if you want traffic? We all know its alive and well.
5 Andy Allan // May 3, 2009 at 9:00 AM

@cfdev: did you even bother to read the blog entry or indeed my comment above?

This is NOT about driving traffic ...
6 David // May 3, 2009 at 6:19 PM

Andy - I'm with you on selling to management, but defending a negative is not a way to do that, you must accentuate the positive. I know this for a fact, when we have had to "justify" our use of ColdFusion. We simply don't respond to "no one uses that any more" statements. We make bold, broad statements like "Our development platform will reduce your project timelines by 45%" and then back it up with action. THAT is what gets the attention of management, not a "look, no, really, we're NOT dead!". The whole "selling to non-CF developers" thing never made any sense to me. The path of least resistance is to up and coming management who will eventually be in a position to make to "We use Adobe", and developers will fall into line (or get fired). IMHO

Cheers,

Davo
7 David // May 3, 2009 at 6:20 PM

Andy - FYI, I don't believe this post is a "traffic driver", it's a legitimate question within the community as to how we attack this issue.

Davo
8 passing a drug test // Aug 28, 2009 at 10:13 AM

You seem to have got the niche from the root, Awesome work