For ColdFusion (from PHP) for the Flex / Flash backend?

Question

I am starting to learn about Flex / Flash and come from the background of PHP. ColdFusion seems to be the language of choice for the Flash / Flex backend. But (big, but for me) I do not plan to create websites that will be heavily dependent on Flash (for SEO, etc.), just sites that will include Flash in small parts. I think for this reason, I am not going to get any benefits by switching my work from PHP to ColdFusion. Since I'm new to technology, I'm not sure if this is correct. Can someone help comparing PHP with ColdFusion (which I assume is Adobe the backend language)? in the context of what I said above would be helpful. I'm going to lose a lot of libraries, functionality, usability, etc., without doing my backends in ColdFusion.

Answer 1

I used both CF and PHP for a similar purpose: execute database queries in the backend from the front flash movie. These flash clips were similar to your situation, more or less autonomous, not very integrated into the website.

I found that with CF you can do more than with PHP. Database operations are much easier to perform in CF than PHP, and more on that. However, if your SQL skills are not too shabby, this is not a big problem.

IMHO, your needs are better suited to PHP because it is free and you can get WAMP or LAMP easily configured as your sandbox. If you just need a sandbox for CF, you either have to “pay” the sticker price * for the official Adobe software, or get significantly lower simulations like Railo Server .

Note that for me I was able to perform database operations on the server using WAMP / LAMP and Adobe CF, but not Railo, so this greatly limits your sandbox experiments with CF. That was 9 months ago, so you might want to check to see if Rail has improved with it.

As far as libraries are concerned, there are much more options for PHP than for CFs, due to the much larger developer community. Data from Google:
PHP: 15 million views
CF: 0.5 million views

In short: go with PHP.

NTN

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Edit:
As Al mentioned, CF developer release is free.

Answer 2

FWIW. Flash Remoting (AMF) in ColdFusion is faster faster than PHP alternatives. 40 times faster in size! If performance matters, then ColdFusion is truly the only choice.

Answer 3

I, like many others, wrote answers to the length of ColdFusion Vs PHP , which can provide more language comparison.

If you perform only small tasks, you can use HTTP and XML data transfer from the flash side. If you do not move a lot of data, you will not see much benefit from AMF (Adobe Messaging Format). If you need such binary data transfer, PHPAMF is available as open source Adobe BladeDS, which comes with ColdFusion and is available separately.

I personally think that you should adhere to the fact that someday the tool is more convenient for you. But you should not confuse those who treat ColdFusion as inferior. ColdFusion is a Java application as such if you can use all the available java libraries. Java has more libraries than ANY language, even the desired PHP. Also for Adobe development, ColdFusion is free and good, like Railo Open source , offering Blaze DS packages with the same open source Java / AMF server that ColdFusion 9 comes with. I personally use Railo and BlazeDs with great success as free open source CFML options.

Answer 4

A few thoughts on this subject, from someone who has evolved in both PHP and ColdFusion

• ColdFusion has better OO support than PHP5 (or maybe I'm just doing the wrong PHP5 OO)
• ColdFusion works better with a wide range of other technologies (Flash / AMF, Databases, LDAP, .NET, Outlook, SMS, SOAP, JSON, etc.) out of the box without add-ons.
• PHP has a smaller memory size
• PHP is more easily accessible from hosting providers

Having said all this, if you are looking to create small add-ons on your website using Flash / Flex, there is no reason why you should feel obligated to learn a new language and redo the rest of your website in CF. PHP will work fine. If you are just a PHP developer and you already have experience with PHP, it might be worthwhile to choose CFML as a secondary language, just to open up opportunities for contracting and expand your horizons, but it's probably not worth it if you're just trying to quickly execute this project and the "right way"

Answer 5

I would like to add another vote for the winners of "Stick with PHP" (from an active Coldfusion developer):

• PHP is free and has great resources and a good community.
• Coldfusion has an ever-shrinking community.
• Syntax wise, Coldfusion is a thorn.
• Although Adobe does ColdFusion and Flash / Flex, I found that the benefits of using ColdFusion for PHP to support Flash / Flex are minimal.
• As bguiz said, Coldfusion better supports databases. In particular, switching from one database to another is easy and painless. However, again, the advantages over PHP are minimal.
• PHP has full OO support and support for closures and other useful features.
• Learning PHP and using PHP will help you in the future. Learning Coldfusion (more than likely) will make you regret learning Coldfusion.

For me, they are both viable, good options. This is not necessarily an easy choice, as each language has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, using both methods, I have to give PHP an edge.

Answer 6

IMO, based on what you are saying (the projects you are working on integrating flash and flex right now use only these technologies in small and limited fields), you would be crazy to switch to CF. This is too much suffering and sorrow to not receive any benefit.

If you are ever planning to expand your scope with these products, you should at least take some CF knowledge at the same time . If any of these technologies becomes an important part of your future development plans, you will need Coldfusion knowledge to determine whether the transition to Coldfusion will greatly simplify integration and / or increase efficiency.

Unfortunately, there is no good online source that can hold you in your hands while you study Coldfusion (for example, hundreds that exist for PHP); But finding Volume 1 for the ColdFusion Web Application Kit (WACK) for 7 or 8 may give you a good foundation for development (as long as I don’t know about CF7 WACK, Flash and Flex integration is covered in detail in Volume 2 of CF8 WACK, but that's it for you equally need to understand the basics before considering this).