Does anyone use ColdFusion anymore?

Question

Just wondering if it's worth learning ColdFusion anymore? Can anyone name a big site that still uses it? (please don't say Myspace.com as they use .net now)

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

ColdFusion has an enormous presence in existing government and intranet applications, and not surprisingly, Adobe has committed to supporting it for a very long time. However, note that ColdFusion (the software) is different from CFML (the programming language). You can learn the language without being tied to CF specifically. This is analogous to how you can learn C# on the Mono platform instead of being tied to Microsoft's .NET implementation, and yet your skills will be freely transferable.

All that noted, it's fair to say that few commercial or institutional entities are starting new projects in ColdFusion/CFML relative to other technologies.

Answer 2

A list:

http://forta.com/cf/using/

Answer 3

Dell's training services website is written in ColdFusion: http://www.learndell.com/Dell/ I think you will find CFML web sites sprinkled all over the place. Is it worth learning without an immediate need? Probably not....just because its so stupidly easy that you can put it off until you need it.

Answer 4

Supposing there are a couple of high-profile sites that use ColdFusion, that doesn't answer your question about whether it's worth learning ColdFusion (unless you want a job at those specific companies).

As the saying goes: "the plural of anecdote is not data."

The job search engine http://indeed.com has a feature to search trends within the job market. Basically, you can enter a search term and it shows you the percentage of jobs per month that match your criteria.

I did a search with different programming languages and combined the search pattern with "AND HTML" to try to filter to web developer jobs.

• ColdFusion AND HTML: 0.04%
• Ruby AND HTML: 0.06%
• Python AND HTML: 0.06%
• Perl AND HTML: 0.17%
• PHP AND HTML: 0.25%
• ASP.NET AND HTML: 0.3%
• Java AND HTML: 0.6%

Number are approximate, based on my eyeballing the graph. Trend lines rise and fall, so I focused on the most recent dates the graphs showed, which is July 2009.

Answer 5

In addition to what's already been said about CF being maintained for existing projects but not really used on new projects, bear in mind that languages never really die. Plenty of organisations still use COBOL, for instance.

Answer 6

The question I frequently ask is, other than lack of experience, why wouldn't you use Coldfusion on a new project?

In terms of RAD development you can produce high quality multi-tiered applications in a short amount of time (line by line) compared to other languages. Coldfusion doesn't have near the number security headaches which constantly plague other languages such as PHP and .Net.

There is always an appropriate for every type of nail. In terms of web applications, Coldfusion is fitting the bill for our development team.

Answer 7

Worth learning? Maybe. I think it really depends on what you enjoy and where you want to go and what you would like to do:

First and foremost, ColdFusion is a web centric language. Every now and then someone decides to try and make it do things it wasn't really designed for (I am looking squarely at you OO) but at the end of the day it really excels at generating HTML. If you are going to be working in a web-only world, then maybe it is worth it.

ColdFusion is used in just about every large company, though I doubt many openly advertise it unless they are hiring for that specific position. I was involved in a proposal for some contract work with the U.S. Government (who happens to be one of the largest CF consumers) and the contracting folks actually pulled that off our skill set as it was irrelevant to the project as well as they saw it as a negative in this bid. Chock that up however you want to.

And really that ties in nicely to the fact that I see most CF jobs as contracting positions for relatively short-term projects (always with long-term prospects of course). It would be wise if you decide to jump into the pool that you seriously consider how willing you are to relocate every so often. Also, I would not just learn ColdFusion - I would very seriously consider learning Flex (and Air) as well as they really compliment each other well.

Of course there aren't as many CF jobs as php, .net or java certainly - but there does seems to be a steady demand and you can certainly get a lot done in a short time with CF.

Oh, and just suck up the pound sign (#) nonsense for the first year or so. It is inconsistent, hard to explain and there are plenty of corner cases that boggle the mind. It will become second nature at some point.

Answer 8

You can answer your title question by taking a look at the questions asked right here on stackoverflow under the tag coldfusion. :-)

Answer 9

If you are building apps with a flex front end, I would definitely consider CF for a new project. The newer versions of CF integrate very nicely with flex (as would be expected coming from the same company)

Answer 10

As to your question about who uses it, here's another list that may help: http://www.gotcfm.com/

Also, if you check on Adobe's site (under ColdFusion Customers) you'll see several high profile organizations such as BMW, Bank of America, NASA, eBay, Cisco, Boeing, and most of the big telecoms.