Anyone who has been involved in programming has heard the name of ColdFusion Development. The program is a commercial web application development program which was launched in 1995 by Jeremy Allaire and JJ Allair. The initial purpose of the ColdFusion was to make it easier to connect simple HTML pages to a database. But over time, it developed into a full platform with its own IDE and Scripting language. Today, the ColdFusion can build a content database using input templates, and merge these with various application programs to create a Website where the pages are developed dynamically as they are served.
The coldFusion platform consists of two parts: the IDE, i.e., ColdFusion Studio that is the platform where the sites are built, and ColdFusion Server where the webpages are stored for the future calling. ColdFusion has its own page markup language, called ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). CFML includes the Web's Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML).
In the past two decades many more new platform and languages have come up like PHP, ASP.NET, Python, Rails, etc. Each of these platform has their own set of developers and followers and the same is true for ColdFusion as well. ColdFusion Developer works on the same platform to develop different programs.
There are many arguments about why or why not one should go for ColdFusion, but still there is a lot of work around for ColdFusion Developers. Many websites are still built on its platform. The most valuable feature of this platform is its ease to use. ColdFusion allows building of Web sites as "piece parts" that can be stored in a database, and then can be reassembled for Web pages, e-mail newsletters, and other uses.
Following are the salient feature of ColdFusion Development and why is it still so popular among the masses:
1. ColdFusion allows to create a prototype and to mock things up quickly.
2. There are not many ColdFusion Developer these days, but it is a platform which is easy to learn.
3. ColdFusion allows easy use of Jquery/Javascript as compared to .NET due to the mashing of client side IDs.
4. It has a provision for exporting the data to PDF and hence can be a big help in creating the documentation.
5. ColdFusion is a strong administrative portal for configuration/logging etc. It ensures the perfect customer experience.
6. It has a great charting component built in.
7. Since it has been there for a while, there are many books available on the subject which can help in learning ColdFusion Development.
Many people have argued that the time of ColdFusion is past and that there is no more need for ColdFusion Developers, but ColdFusion, like all the other language, has its own set of pros and cons. There are developers which work only on ColdFusion Platform and there are those which will call it a very expensive and almost dead platform.
For a ColdFusion developer, there is no lack of work in the market. What one needs is to learn the language and the patience to pitch the project.
