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The CF code here is not explicit enough to allow the compiler to run fast enough. It has to spend all of the time going through looking for the tags, looking for the # and rendering data when it is done. I will put pre-compiled C# code up to that any day.

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Coldfusion code nowadays is compiled code that is cached for subsequent hits. This used to go like this: Coldfusion code -> Java code -> Java bytecode. And with the new Coldfusion MX 6.1 it's like: Coldfusion Code -> Java Bytecode.

This is all much faster than it used to be and CAN tough executiontimes made by ASP.net. A comparison of old style coldfusion (6.0 and lower) with ASP.net is like comparing ASP.net with old style ASP. They jsut don't compare.

If you'd have converted the 70 sites from Coldfusion 5 to Object oriented Coldfusion MX 6.1 code (essentially a complete rewrite as you've done in ASP.net) the results would probably be about the same.

I'm saying this because people are constantly comparing Coldfusion and ASP.net and they mostly compare the older versions of Coldfusion along with the latest version. That is a little unfair as it would be like comparing ASP.net together with ASP as one platform and say that the flaws of ASP are still existing in ASP.net.

This seems rather naive, but is Cold Fusion a viable competitor/alternative to ASP.Net?

I am not talking about performance, rapid development etc. I am talking about cost.

I used to work for a Cold Fusion house where I was the designated ASP person dealing with legacy applications. All day, everyday I had to deal with the “you poor ****” attitude from the Cold Fusion programmers. Yet as I pondered the cost of the application server, and the headaches it caused the server administrator, I could not help think if one was so against ASP, why not PHP?

I don’t have any documentation as to the prevalence to Cold Fusion to ASP, but it seems the debate should be between ASP.Net, PHP, and/or JSP.

Does anyone know where Cold Fusion stands among these others?

I think it is a very viable competitor.
You said you want to know about cost.
CFMX is about $1300.00. Now that sounds like a lot of money, but you have to pay for MS Server to run Asp.net in a production enviroment. CFMX can run on Linux (free), MS, and unix.
And the cost of development IS cheaper because it is more rapid.

I like Asp.net more because MS has more market power than Macromedia, but you can't say anything bad about a product that can natively use Java components and can run on any J2EE compliant server.

Each of the font sizing issues and the alt tag handling (for all controls) issues you express concern over can be controlled and handled by the developer. It is easy to extend the behavior of the controls in the box to provide the accessibility level you are looking for. Or to author your own controls to do precisely what you want. If it can be done in the browser, .NET can handle it.

Keep a watch out for ASP.NET Version 2 Whidbey -- you'll be able to build your simple query scenario for the low developer price of a drag and drop, setting a few properties in the designer, and 0 lines of code. That's right -- zero. It's called declarative software development. Now that the plumbing is in place (ASP.NET 1.0) and tuned (ASP.NET 1.1), Microsoft is putting another layer on top that will vastly simplify access to the rich functionality exposed by the frameworks class libraries.

>>Also, if you will ever notice when you use <cfquery> to open a connection to the database, where is the cfquery.close()? There isn't one. It is a setting on the server to close after so long. In other words, if you have 50 users come in to your site and hit a page that makes a database call, that connection sits open until it closes according to the default time set on the cfadmin. That's 50 open connections! Imagine 500! That is not good. <<

Your talking about 500 hitting the same query at the same time? No language has a way around that. But in CF you can set the inactivity time to 5 seconds. And it essentially closes almost immediatly after use.

How much does a mail server for ASP cost? 10 thousand? <cfmail> does it for free on CF. Seems like ASP is much more expensive. o its CF and PHP that should be compared and not ASP.

sorry but i had to weigh in on the issue of Database connections.

Most of the database providers implement a connection pooling mechanism, with typical settings of max 30 connections.

Which means that if 50 users are accessing the site, 30 connections are open to the database. This is normal and expected. All 50 users will be vying for time on one of the 30 connections each time a query is executed. So in theory, the last 20 queries will have to wait for the first 30 to finish before executing.

Since most queries are simple and can be fetched in milleseconds, the perceived wait time is nil.

However, as you scale up, contention for the 30 connections grows. At which point it is simply recommended to scale up the connection pool size. However, you typically would not see any major impact until you began to hit 1000 simulatenous users. And by simultaneous, I mean clicking at the exact same time, and not 1000 users accessing the site, because all 1000 most likely would not be hitting at exactly the same time.

Anyhow, cf has a convient query caching mechanism that will store results from previous queries if the query parameters are the same, thereby futher reducing a connection attempt.

CF's queries are all closed at the end of the page request.

ASP.Net's manual queries are controlled more by the developer, and hence are subject to the knowledge level of the developer, ie, if he doesnt close the query, it'll have to wait for the GC to collect it and dispose it.

I have seen many many many instances of people incorrectly increasing connection pool size because of poor connection management in ASP.Net.

Of note, in Asp.Net, I am designing some CF-similar controls, especially the CFQuery and CFMail, that are Asp.Net controls, and give the ease of use and quick-to-show type of presentation that Asp.Net is seriously lacking.

Stay tuned to my site, www.ensoft-software.com

Uh, CF doesn't come with a mail server. <cfmail> uses an existing mail server (not one built in).

And there are lots of free SMTP servers available. Heck, IIS comes with one, which is probably the one you're using with your CF server.

Amen brother!

I was switched out of a ColdFusion Site to  a Commerce Server site.

Commerce Server is not meant to be maintained and extended by one person as it is on our site. I did not have OOP experience and while I like challenges I would advise all to stay away from Commerce Server because:

You'd be paying money for things you won't probably use
There is absolutely no meaningful community to assist you
The cost of Commerce Server is outrageous compared to to ColdFusion Server
You'll have to explain why the crazy things your marketing department suggests will not be easy to do after they've grown used to having you do things easily in ColdFusion.
Piplines! the stupid company that got us started on this did all kinds of custom programming to work around the pipeline limitations. Pipelines suck.

The worst is the Commerce Server Community. I went into CF cold and picked it up pretty quickly because there was always someone who had some code posted somewhere on the web that would at least get you started. You will not find any such thing for Commerce Server.

Anyway if you like abstaction in your code to the point that you need to pick up a book and try and understand API theory without any practical examples then Commerce Server is for you.

If you like to work close to the data and have control over your app. Then CF, PHP, Lord even ASP.Net just stay away from Commerce Server.

 

Nowadays, there's really no good reason to stay with ColdFusion.  Asp.Net / .Net features and functionality far exceed those of ColdFusion.  Even PHP and (gasp) Java offer more.  Well... maybe not Java.

I put the breakdown on my site: http://comparati.com/1131-Asp-Net-vs-ColdFusion