If you spend money for the sole reason of impressing someone (other that a potential mate) you are an idiot. You are putting other peoples needs and opinions above your own.
IF their opinion matters more than your own.. you are making yourself their bitch.
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.
If you are a CF developer (or web developer) and you are still using DreamWeaver or Homesite or CF studio and not using Eclipse or any other of the advanced IDE's like Komodo, Visual Studio, Aptana, NetBeans etc, *you literally have no idea what you are missing out on*.
If you use F1 on DreamWeaver, Homesite or CF studio as a primary source of information about programming, CSS, HTML and your available options you are also missing a HUGE piece of information .
I have been using Eclipse for about 9 months now and the one thing it has taught me is how little I know. When I first fired up CF studio some 10 odd years ago I looked at all the CF related buttons and the options and felt clueless.
By using various Eclipse distros like the one provided by Pulse I feel even more clueless than I did 10 years ago. AND I have a working knowledge of web development and client and server side languages like JS, SQL, XML, XSL, HTML, XHTML, CSS, ASP, PHP, RegEx, CFML etc under my belt. As well as being exposed good doses of VB, ASP.NET, C#, ROR, Java, PERL, Python etc over the years.
The one thing I am finding out that I don't know shit.
At FSU the is an engraving on Dodd Hall that reads "The half of knowledge is to know where to find knowledge"
Now I know the other half of knowledge is making sure that you are being exposed to *new* knowledge on a regular basis.
If you explore Eclipse it will end up teaching you more than you can possibly imagine.
Literally.
