ColdFusion: With ColdFusion, you can build and deploy powerful web applications and services with far less training time and fewer lines of code than ASP, PHP, and JSP. Version 7.0 introduces powerful new application services including rich Flash forms generation, structured reports, and dynamic generation of printable documents. Coupled with version 6.1’s simplified installation and migration, updated key features, and increased in runtime performance, these features open up a new world of applications beyond the browser.
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What is ColdFusion?
ColdFusion is a program based on the CFMX programming language that builds and deploys powerful web applications and services. With proven tag-based methodology, ColdFusion’s features allow web developers to easily harness the power of the Java Platform to deliver powerful Internet applications to millions of people worldwide. ColdFusion is a server side language, which is executed by a ColdFusion application server. It works by executing CFM templates (which is a mixture of HTML and ColdFusion instructions) to return normal HTML to the requesting browser. The ColdFusion MX Enterprise software suite provides all the necessary software to create large-scale websites, applications, and hosting environments, and is available for either a stand-alone installation for web developers or for industry-level deployment on J2EE application servers.
The true power of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML)
The core functionality of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is centered on the use of tags. These server scripting tags give ColdFusion its speedy development applications for the web. CFML is quite simple to learn, but is powerful enough to handle even the most complex and demanding web applications. Processed entirely on the server, CFML uses syntax closely resembling that of HTML and XML. CFML consists of two primary language elements: tags and functions. Tags let you perform operations such as accessing a database. Functions can return data and do other operations like retrieving the system date. Tags, functions and operators make up expressions. Building expressions in ColdFusion is easy and can include simple as well as complex elements. The ways in which these expressions and elements are used determine how ColdFusion processes your program.
Is ColdFusion easy to learn?
Out of the many different methods used to develop and build web applications, pages, and services, ColdFusion is by far the easiest to learn and use. For ColdFusion 7.0, Macromedia has created a helpful ‘Getting Started Experience’ interface that gives the new user access to tutorials, whitepapers, topic index, and even two sample applications to play with.
There is no other language or product as well suited to web developers as ColdFusion. Easy-to-use visual tools and an intuitive server scripting environment allow new users to easily pick up the CFML language.
Windows, UNIX, or Linux…which Should I Use To Run My Website?
Macromedia ColdFusion MX supports most operating systems including Windows, Unix, Linux, IBM AIX and HP-UX. Below is a list of operating system versions and system requirements for the latest ColdFusion version:
Windows OS Intel Pentium processor or higher 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available Works on MS Windows 98 / ME / NT 4 / SP6A / 2000 /SP3 / XP/ 2003
Linux OS Intel Pentium processor or higher 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available Red Hat Linux 7.2 / 7.3 / 8.0 / 9 / AS & ES 2.1 / AS & ES 3.0 SuSE Linux 7.2 / 7.3 / or 8X Turbo Linux 8 Server ( Japanese Only)
Unix SPARC, PA-RISC 1.1 / 2.0 / Power 3 processor Sun Solaris 7 / 8 / 9 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available HP-UX 11i IBM AIX 5L 4.3 / 3 / 5.1 / 5.2 Apple Mac OS X
What Databases and Web Servers are supported with ColdFusion?
ColdFusion MX supports most major databases including Microsoft SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase and IBM Informix. In addition, CFMX can run on most major web servers including IIS, Apache and Sun One.
What are the differences between the ColdFusion 7.0 editions?
Standard Edition: This edition is for single web application or small workgroup environments. It builds accessible, high-quality rich forms, transforms existing HTML content into PDF or FlashPaper 2 formats, creates structured business reports for workgroup applications, delivers charts and graphs, and increases text searching capabilities.
Enterprise Edition: This edition is ideal for the quickly growing business. It includes all the features of the Standard Edition as well as scalability, performance, and enterprise management capabilities for larger web and business applications. The Enterprise Edition has multi-instance deployment and management, clustering, high-speed enterprise database drivers, server security J2EE packaging and deployment, and high-performance e-mail delivery. Yet the most anticipated feature of this edition is the event gateway, which enables ColdFusion applications to connect to mobile phones and instant messaging.
How does ColdFusion run on application servers?
The ColdFusion MX runtime environment is actually a Java application that takes advantage of the many powerful services in the J2EE platform. What this J2EE platform does is connects the various databases, manages its own security, as well as processes the requests sent in by the application itself. When ColdFusion MX is installed in the J2EE configuration, the compiled infrastructure will be on top of the application server in order to execute the language’s applications. This configuration will allow developers to cultivate and set out pages, as well as manage the MX server settings using the ColdFusion Administrator.
What are the advantages & disadvantages of using custom tags in ColdFusion?
Using custom tags within ColdFusion has its advantages and disadvantages. Custom tags written in CFML primarily try to achieve a simple balance between three aspects; taking argument statements, having body tags begin and end with the appropriate tag, and ensuring proper processing when a beginning tag is encountered by the ColdFusion program. If designed properly, these custom tags will also be able to be called recursively (meaning that it will have the functionality to call itself within the body tag). Although a custom tag in ColdFusion will call a page included the CFinclude tag, the disadvantage is that the code must be recursive, have developed complex functionality, and must be convenient for others (although often times code is not convenient). If creating either a User Defined Function (UDF) or a custom CFML tag, weigh the options carefully, since invoking a UDF requires less system overhead than using a custom tag.
What are the new features for ColdFusion 7.0?
ColdFusion 7.0 brings a whole new level of features to developers. With better web application creation, new server management and deployment options, and a new class of applications, users are able to quickly create powerful Internet applications without spending a lot of time or money.
Macromedia developed the new features to help web developers be more efficient in performing routine tasks such as structured business reporting, Flash-rich forms, and PDF and FlashPaper 2 document generation. ColdFusion Report Builder, a tool that helps users develop detailed business reports, will create sub reports, charts and graphs, automatically generate subtotals, and much more. ColdFusion 7.0 simplifies the form building process with the new Rich Flash and XML Forms capabilities. The new CFDOCUMENT feature eliminates chopping page printing with a single tag that transforms web pages into PDF or FlashPaper 2 formats.
How do I purchase my own copy of ColdFusion?
The ColdFusion MX suite is available directly from Macromedia, local computer software resellers, licensing programs and some web hosts.
What is Root Access, Can I Live Without It?
In the world of web hosting, there are a lot of web hosting providers who compete with each other with long lists of features and benefits. On many of these lists you will see the term “Root Access”. To be honest, many of the people with websites today will never need Root Access, and many of them do not even know what it is.
In the world of UNIX and Linux, security is based on permissions. This extends to both the file system and access permissions. This security system is very flexible, and allows a system administrator to set up unique security access constraints to only allow certain users to see certain areas and access certain files and applications.
In order to administrate something like this, a “master” account is needed. This account, the “root” account, has full access to the machine at “root” level meaning the lowest level of access you can have (or, in other words, the best access). Having “root access”, you can do many things the typical user account cannot do. This includes full manipulation of the file system, as well as administrating the current running processes. There is a danger here. Someone who is not a seasoned administrator can do a lot of damage to a machine, due merely to the amount of power that is available at their fingertips.
Do you need this kind of access? That depends. To be honest, unless you have your own server, either dedicated or collocated, chances are that you will not need (or receive) root access. Root is something required for server maintenance, and if you are having your website hosted by a hosting company on a machine with twenty other websites, it’s a safe bet that your hosting provider is not going to give up root access to the box. It would be the hosting provider’s job to administer the server to keep it running smoothly.
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