Yes! Finally there is a mature version of CF supported by a stable company that is FOSS.

I love CF. I dreaded the thought of having to go back to PHP or learning .NET or Java as main programming platform. I like PHP, ASP, .NET and Java well enough. But CF has spoiled me. It just takes so much more code/work to write apps in these languages. Besides, I know CF like the back of my hand. I *think* in CF. I dream in code. I program in my sleep and when I dream it is genearly from a CF stand point.

I have been learning Java due to my FUD with "CF is dead" and the general lack of jobs for CF in my area. I just got started with Java and to bring my chops up to speed, with my CF chops, on any of the above, will not happen with out some serious effort.

BTW, I never had FUD with CF until I started looking for a job outside my geek friend circle last year. But that is another story for another time.

But no more. With Blue Dragon J2EE going open source it means that all the companies and dept's that balked at the $7500 per box cost for Enterprise CF have no (good) reason to do so anymore. The $1500 jump in price for Adobe's Enterprise version really pissed me off seeing that it effectively priced itelf out of the ball park for most (mom and pop or local) ISP's and hosting companies and grass root startups (like my past efforts).

The one thing I have learned while learning Java is how powerful (and easy) CFML is. When I started learning Java (and OO programming in general) my eyes became wide open and realized how little I knew and that I was just scratching the surface to the potential of CF.

A few years back, I had foolishly thought that I had done pretty much most every thing that could be done with CF. And at the time, just around when cf 6 was released I probably was pretty much versed in 80-95% of the language to the point where it was rote.

Imagine how stupid I feel now with a ~year of OO under my belt and still not knowing shite.

So I DL's the J2EE version of BD, read the docs. I deployed it on TomCat and got busy.

First thoughts: TomCat was at 23 megs just sitting there. With BD it hit about 33-35 megs, again, just sitting there. It was at about 45 megs running some simple CFM's, i.e no CFC's. I did beat on it a bit (looping over 10,000 items) but it never went over 45 megs. Adobe CF 8 on tomcat hovered at easily twice that and the stand alone version (on apache) kisses 200 megs (sitting there) not including the ODBC, .NET bridge or search services,

All I have to say is that I am thoroughly impressed with BD. Aside from some minor syntactical difference, and missing some minor functionality from Adobe's offering; I am very, very impressed.

In fact, after reading the docs, the enhancements that BD brought to the plate (for CF 7.x) more than makes up for its compatibility issues.

So hello BDJ2EE. Me love you long time.

I have been fighting it. The FUD, the slim job market, the abuse. But I have given in again to the lure of CF.

I have played with and or made production apps with PHP, ASP, C#/ASP.NET, Java/JSP/Groovy, Ruby, ROR, PERL and so on.

And the one thing I have noticed is that for a lot of the above languages writing a simple app (say in Java/JSP) is like swatting a bug with a sledge hammer.

With ROR, you have to know a bazzion hand shakes to do something that is SUPER SIMPLE. Like trying to group output by category:

http://instantbadger.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-still-miss-cfoutput.html

Or with PHP where everything is odles of noodles spaghetti.

HTML is spaghetti, SQL is spaghetti, dynamic JS is spaghetti.... You will go blind trying to debug dynamic JS generated by PHP.

ASP? As Sid said in '78: No future for you!

ASPX/C#? Code behind? Poor excuse for OO. It never made sense to me. ASP.NET is smart and well designed but the whole Code behind thing gave me a rash.

I do like the VB and C# syntax. Especially C#

BTW JS browser issues irritates me to no end. i.e. "GODDAMMIT just FARKING WORK!!!!"

But CF? It is so simple, so smart, so damn easy. The easy stuff is idiot proof, the harder stuff is a cake walk compared to other languages. And the hard stuff? Do you even have to ask?

You need to do something? Chances are there is an out of the box tag or function for it. Need to do some heavy lifting? You have COM, the entire Java and .NET library at your command. Not to mention most any Java class including most everything at Apache.org and Source forge. Or you can roll your own.

What else you need? AJAX? Done. Frameworks? Done. ORM? Done. Code Generators? Done. Scaffolding? Done. Unit Tests? Done.

Ever update a database record with one line of code using three variables?

I didn't think so.

I have gotten off my ass and mustered the courage to tackle Java full on. All I can say is Wow. I wrote my first Java app and it wasn't all that bad. I thought it would be a lot harder that it is.

A little background on why this is significant:

I am dyslexic and have written language and math learning disabilities (shhhhhush!!). There are over 3 std. deviations between my verbal intelligence scores and my spelling/grammar scores (i.e. syntax). Literally, I am simultaneously smarter and dumber than 99% of the population. Even with ColdFusion I had an extremely hard time with the syntax (now that is really bad). I BLED to earn my chops in the beginning. I pushed myself harder then than I had had at any time prior to that (and I push hard as a matter of habit). When I first started coding it was not the concepts that got, me it was the syntax. I used to literally SHAKE with frustration trying to get the right syntax to do what I wanted. I will not even get into what it was like generating JS on the fly with PHP. Let's just say I almost lost my mind and there are some people that are lucky to be alive ;) .

So yeah, according to me, God, math, and science, this is a major accomplishment.

Much like my childhood hero, Bruce Lee, I have identified and overcome my limitations and weaknesses with attitude, training, discipline and sheer will.

I have done what I previously thought to be impossible and became a professional computer programmer. When I first tried programming Basic on our Atari 800 some 20 odd years ago I shook with frustration and I thought I would never, ever be a programmer. I mean NEVER, EVER.

I owe a lot of it to ColdFusion. If ColdFusion did not exist when I first started I may have never became a programmer or at least the programmer I am today. I am a natural btw. When I got over the syntax hump I took to it like a fish to water. I LOVE what I do for a living. That is rare and a blessing.

But yeah. Java ROCKS!!!!

More on this later

I ran into it here.

http://www.barneyb.com/barneyblog/2008/02/11/barney-and-the-holy-grail/

Sean Corfield wrote on it

http://corfield.org/blog/index.cfm/do/blog.entry/entry/Grails__a_first_look

I have been looking for a replacement for CF for some time now. I am not taking any chances and started learning Java. As you might know Java is huge and it is going to take a while to get up to speed with it. I have played with ROR and and Jruby I am not fond of the syntax or the development process

Enter Groovy and Grails. Grails makes some pretty complex and advanced techniques ridiculously easy to do. And the language is similar enough to CF and CF script to make the learning curve and barrier to entry not as steep as say Ruby or Java. And since it creates Java Byte code it should (in theory) run side by side with CF (That is this weekend’s science experiment). Basically to lets you write Java apps with out having to actually write Java.

http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2006/10/introduction-groovy-grails.html

http://groovy.codehaus.org/

http://grails.org/

I was a HUGE fan of Homesite and CF Studio for years. I thought that I would never find a replacement. I mean never ever. I never liked Dreamweaver and I have long admired MS's Visual Studio but developing strictly for windows was never really an option for me.

The current crop of IDE's that I have been using to do Java development (NetBeans and Eclipse) make Homesite look like a child's play thing. Homesite (and CF Studio) is a great text editor. A true masterpiece in it's time. However, the difference between CF Studio and Eclipse is far greater than the difference between CF Studio and Notepad.

In that light, I can say that in the last 5 years ColdFusion has not had a good IDE. I love CFEclipse but it is not so much the CF part that I love s much as it is the Eclipse part. Hats off to mark Drew and Crew, I am deeply indebted to the CFEclipse team for what they have done. But Mark is one guy. The other IDE's have armies of developers. CFEclipse is not nearly, not even remotely, close to the tools available to MS, PERL, PHP, Ruby, Java, etc. developers.

Perhaps the CF community is happy or content with DW and CFEclipse. I am not. I know there is better and that bothers me.

My foray into Java has lead me to one conclusion. "The more I learn the less I know".

Coming from a web dev/scripting background I am finding that Java is HUGE. It is amazing. It is exciting. It is daunting. It is empowering. It opens so many doors I am giddy and do not know where to start.

It also makes me feel dumb.

I am in search of the perfect application stack. There are many things about the above app stacks to love. I like them all. I have used all of the above to varying degrees. I have been on the Java train for some time and have been trying to get my head around it for the last few months. I wrote a couple POC apps in ROR to see what the hype is about and have been using PHP for years. And CF has been by my side for the last 10 years or so... A while back I was giving jRuby a spin using GlassFish and NetBeans and I really liked it. I liked it a lot. I also liked working with Java in NetBeans.

The thing is, I can't get them to play together all under one roof.

CF runs on Java so that is a given. PHP can play with Java a and ROR has been ported to Java via JRubyy. CF can talk to PHP and Ruby. I just wish I could get the all to run together, on the same machine, on the same web/app server, on the same port.

So I tried to install CF 8 as a WAR file on GlassFish and it worked. But CF 8 Enterprise is $7500, so I tried installing Railo and that is running fine. I am about to see if I can get JRuby and php/Java bridge to run as well.

If I can get all of these to run on the same server (on the same port) I will have the perfect platform. The RAD capabilities of CF and ROR, the bazillion OS PHP web apps out there and the power of Java (and bazillion prebuilt Java apps and tags as well).