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Video: ColdFusion and Java Integration: Let Me Count the Ways

June 30, 2010 AT 10:02 AM
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In a lot of ways, ColdFusion is Java, says Adam Lehman - it has a lot of really popular Java frameworks already built into it, such as Ehcache and Hibernate.  It can complement what you're already doing with J2EE development and make things simpler.  Using CFML to create HTML is also a great replacement for JSP.  You don't have to give up your back-end (EJB, Spring, Hibernate) to use CF.

Adam Lehman is the Senior Product Manager for ColdFusion.  He says a lot of ColdFusion use cases are within a Java development cycle.  It's a Java application, so it deploys as an .EAR or .WAR file. 

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Comments

James White replied on Fri, 2010/07/09 - 10:46am

That sounds well and good, but as someone who has worked in both Java and ColdFusion, it's not that simple. ColdFusion is a fine tool for RAD, but is very fringe. Especially compared to the ubiquity of Java, .NET, and PHP. Furthermore, CF developers are often tough to find even if a company is a CF shop. While I liked working with CF, there is a glut of bad CF code out there. Not to say there is no bad Java code out there but CF makes it incredibly easy to write spaghetti code.

I think CF is a decent tool especially if you want to try something faster than JSPs and Servlet development (i.e. no compiling and deploying necessary, just type, save, and refresh your browser). However, be warned that if you spend more than a few months working on any type of CF project it can be tough getting back to Java based web projects if you are a contractor. At least that was my experience working on a CF/Java hybrid projects for a couple of years. I was starting to get labeled as a "CF Guy", which is a problem in the Chicago land area where there are generally no more than 10 CF jobs (often times less) in the entire Chicago Market (suburbs included) at any given time, versus 500 Java Jobs (300-400 during down economic times). I'm now back into full time Java Development and that is where I plan to stay unless something drastic happens.

federico replied on Sat, 2010/07/10 - 12:48pm

sure you'll be able to get rid of SOME of the headaches from java. BUT do think you are ready for the lot of headaches from coldfusion?

christy jones replied on Thu, 2010/07/15 - 10:56am

there was time when Java was so popular specially on internet but now PHP is step ahead in many ways .

James White replied on Fri, 2010/07/16 - 3:05pm in response to: christyjones

@Christy,

Yes PHP is extremely popular on the web, and I think it filled a niche that early Java Web Development missed in terms of fast web site development. While PHP is a better alternative to put up a site really quickly, I would argue that it is not intended for the enterprise. This is where the Java Platform is superior. Furthermore, to be honest I think ColdFusion is actually a better platform than PHP in regards to fast web site development. However, PHP has two major advantages over CF: 1. It's open source and you don't have to come up with thousands of dollars to get a full version of the everything you need to run it. 2. It does not have to fight the bad rep that CF got in the late 90's and the earlier part of the last decade in terms of all of the bad code. I have not worked extensively with PHP, but from what I have seen it works a lot like CF, but lacks many of the conveniences offered by CF. For instance, setting up a datasource is 1 line of code on the back-end and you have instance access to that datasource throughout your application. From what I have seen in the PHP documentation, datasource setup is a longer process. So while I agree that PHP is a better web development language for fast web site development, than Java (especially for someone new to web development), I would say that as time has passed, Java and JEE development explicitly tends to get used to tackle much larger issues of companies who are doing more than putting up basic store fronts or social networking sites.

Shankar Jain replied on Tue, 2010/08/24 - 4:01am

Ben Forta, best-selling ColdFusion author is coming to India this August at India's largest Adobe Flash Platform Conference. Ben Forta will conduct a visionary keynote on the opening day of the summit. For more information and to register log on to adobesummit.com

Liezel Jane Jandayan replied on Mon, 2011/08/22 - 8:59pm

Targeting high volume applications where response times are important such as Web portals, trading platforms and e-commerce websites, the need that Azul meets has become increasingly part of the enterprise Java mainstream as applications and users have become more demanding and hardware capabilities greater.

Yochanan Berkowitz

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