Ok,
You might think this is just my opinion, but I think these are the facts, these are the things that are needed if ColdFusion is to survive the next 5 years.
1. Standard Edition Must be FREE for commercial use.
2. Enterprise Edition should be LESS expensive.
3. Charge for the IDE CF Builder.
4. Have ability to write code 100% without tags (CFSCRIPT) perhaps .cfs extension.
5. Market 1, 2, 3 & 4 heavily with some serious dollars.
I think that 1, 2 & 3 would produce no negative sales benefit. There are a lot more developers than servers thus you sell a lot of IDE's.
To stop the YUCK factor that .NET and Java people experience when viewing code, developers must be able to develop code without using tags, it's that simple, and from developers that I talk to, if they could they would.
And if Adobe can offer 100 million for Flex stuff, I really expect to see some serious $ for Coldfusion 8 out of Adobe, I think they get one shot and this is it.
PS: I love ColdFusion and want it to survive, have replaced ASP and Java solutions using it with much benefit and time saving. I really don't want to have to go back again.
PPS: If you want to comment, comment on if you agree or don't agree on points 1-5 not on if I should have written this or not.
14 comments:
To stop the YUCK factor that .NET and Java people experience when viewing code, developers must be able to develop code without using tags, it's that simple, and from developers that I talk to, if they could they would.
the tag based syntax is what sets coldfusion apart from the other languages and all but eliminates the barrier to entry for those who don't have prior programming experience or education.
removing it for the sake of impressing .NET or Java developers is... well, i'm sorry... it's silly.
i like cfscript myself (altho i have started using cffunction more because of the cfargument tag). it's not a bias against cfscript... it's just that i don't see a problem with the existence of tags.
if it ain't broke, don't fix it... and certainly don't "fix" it just to appease developers of other languages.
But Charlie,
If developers want ECMA style scripting language, which they do, then surely it should be an option.
There is a reason that almost all modern languages have almost identical syntax and that the ECMA standard was developed.
Because it's good.
1. Standard Edition Must be FREE for commercial use.
2. Enterprise Edition should be LESS expensive.
3. Charge for the IDE CF Builder.
4. Have ability to write code 100% without tags (CFSCRIPT) perhaps .cfs extension.
5. Market 1, 2, 3 & 4 heavily with some serious dollars.
I agree whole-heartedly with points 1, 2 and 5. This will help to bring a bigger developer base and a much broader opensource community to CF.
Number 3 I just dont get. With Mark Drew and folks doing such a great job with CFEclipse, why sell an IDE?
Number 4 Im not sure about. I think that CFSCRIPT could definitely be improved and expanded upon. But I think the thing that draws a lot of people to CF is its tag based structure. Its easy to learn, easy to read and easy to code. Period.
hmmm, I think its a bit too late to turn around to complete with .NET and JAVA and PHP. Let's face the reality that coldfusion is heading the same way as Director heading!(MM tried to change Lingo to Javscript at the end! but too late). what Adobe can do now(only way) is to make Coldfusion like Severside FLEX! use AS3 as default language and MXML or CFComponent as the Markup componet...tie it up with Flash to survive!
I just wrote on this, but I agree with numbers 1 and 3, but in a different fashion: open source ColdFusion server, increase the developer base substantially, and then let Adobe charge per-seat for the pre-eminent ColdFusion development environment.
That, of course, assumes that Adobe CAN in fact create the pre-eminent ColdFusion development environment.
@Ross, If standard is free, enterprise is cheaper and they don't charge for an IDE, how does Adobe actually make money?
I know it depends on the elasticity of the demand curve, but I'm not convinced this will do anything other than slash the revenues from a modest cash cow.
If you want to charge for an IDE, then ColdFusion will die very fast. I haven't even looked at Flex because Adobe wants to charge me $500 for their plug-in for Eclipse. Adobe should be on their hands and knees thanking Mark Drew for working on CFEclipse. Without it, CF would be dead in the water.
ColdFuson will be dead when Adobe decides its no longer profitable to own. Until then, it will remain a niche product for those who need to work in a Java environment but don't want to write Java code.
4.1 Server-Side ActionScript 3 support.
@Ananymous I bet you didn't play with Flex when it was $20k either.
I would live to see full actionscript style syntax in CF.
I write CF, Flash & Flex code, and can tell you after writing nice OO code with AS3 it's really painful going back to CF.
Maybe it will be different with Adobe, but cutting out pricing reduces an already limited revenue stream. How many people do you know that purchased the support?
Another benefit somewhat of it is only the committed get involved to some extent since they sunk the cash into it.
For a comparison take Sharepoint its with $6000 for a 5 license cal and server or else $4000 for the server and $75 per cal seating. I think we purchased an enterprise license for cf7 for like 2700? I know its somewhat apples and oranges but I dunno..... people want everything for nothing these days. Bandwidth, engineers, etc don't suddenly become free because you are moving an additional 100,000 units for $0.
@DK.
I'm not sure I agree, as they will sell the IDE instead. Adobe are good at making IDE's.
You might think why you would buy it rather than use CFECLIPSE. Well for the extra bits that Adobe can throw at it.
Such as Support, Debugger, Development $.
Here's an idea, Adobe hire Mark Drew and make a CFBuilder similar to FlexBuilder.
Hey, I paid for Visual Studio, Flex Builder and Dreamweaver. The purported 400,000 CF developers are mostly used to buying IDE's. Stemming from HomeSite to DreamWeaver CS3.
I agree with the post but why don't you guys and everyone else in CF support the open-source Smith project and forget Adobe? Adobe seems only to have woken up a bit lately under pressure of Bluedragon; I doubt they'll do a free server until forced too.
6) need better open-source projects. All the "open-source" projects seem to amount to one guy letting other people use his toy for free, not a serious open-source system like you see in php/ror. If the server vendors were smart they would see killer open-source apps as invaluable add-ons to their servers and fiercely support them. With the greatest possible respect to blogCFC and one man's hard work, it doesn't compare to Wordpress. But people will get into php after using Wordpress and other apps. Why doesn't Adobe clue-in and sponsor 5 killer open-source apps?
@Dale,
there is no IDE right now.... and I have notepad, CFEclipse, Dreamweaver (which is gimpier than CFEclipse). The debugging is already going to run in CFEclipse. I think the ship has sailed on taking advantage of that area, as it would partially compete with their other products already.
Also talking penetration... which is more important to a company? 75 of the top 100 fortune 500 companies using it..... or an extra 100,000 college students putting up alpha 1 projects on riaforge that never see a point release? (*cough* php *cough*) CF is a serious development tool, and I enjoy that about it. Its penetration at the government level is great. I can personally attest to that after 9 years as a govt. contractor in several organizations.
Just because you have ignorant reporters or students or people that probably would't pay for it regardless that are not exposed to it, doesn't make it failing.
Well here's what we got.
1. Standard Edition Must be FREE for commercial use.
NO
2. Enterprise Edition should be LESS expensive.
NO, it got more expensive
3. Charge for the IDE CF Builder.
NO, they have not anounced their plans, although Tim said he would.
4. Have ability to write code 100% without tags (CFSCRIPT) perhaps .cfs extension.
NO, cfscript is falling by the way side, which would be ok, but they should make a decision, and either offer full support or tell CF people that it is planning on be depreciated.
5. Market 1, 2, 3 & 4 heavily with some serious dollars.
A terrible job here, in Australia at least, no marketing, nothing. A road show and CFCAMP is planned for australia but neither are coming to Melbourne which is Australia's second largest city by a long way.
Still, CF8 is good and i'm still using it, but they seem relecanly to take any bold moves.
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