ColdFusion Introduction and Resources

ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web development platform for building modern server-side web applications, published by Adobe Systems Inc.

What is ColdFusion?

ColdFusion is a rapid web development platform designed to be expressive and powerful. The ColdFusion platform is based on Java and uses the Apache Tomcat J2EE container. ColdFusion runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Solaris operating systems.

ColdFusion’s integrated development environment (IDE), called Adobe ColdFusion Builder, is also available for purchase from Adobe Systems.

The programming language used with the platform is ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), but it is commonly called ColdFusion as well. The CFML tag syntax resembles HTML, with its script syntax resembling JavaScript.

Brief History

ColdFusion was first developed by the Allaire Corporation, specifically by brothers Joseph and Jeremy Allaire, with the intent of simplifying the process of connecting simple HTML web pages to a database. ColdFusion was first released in July 1995, written in Microsoft Visual C++ and limited to running on Microsoft Windows operating systems.

ColdFusion version 3.1, released in January 1998, introduced a port to the Sun Solaris operating system.

The Allaire Corporation announced a merger with Macromedia in January 2001. ColdFusion version 5 is the first release from Macromedia after the acquisition of Allaire Corporation, and the last ColdFusion release written in C++ and coded for a specific platform.

ColdFusion MX version 6, released in June 2002 was based on the Java EE platform and completely rebuilt from the ground up. ColdFusion MX 7 added support for web forms based on Flash and a report builder with output to Adobe PDF, FlashPaper, RTF, and MS Excel formats.

Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems Inc in 2005, so the next release of ColdFusion was rebranded to Adobe ColdFusion 8 and released in July 2007. This release introduced several new features, including integration with Adobe Acrobat forms, Microsoft .Net, and Exchange server.

More releases of Adobe ColdFusion followed, up to the currently available Adobe ColdFusion 2016 release, available since February 2016. Adobe’s ColdFusion IDE, the Adobe ColdFusion Builder is currently available in version 3, released at the end of April 2014.

Features

ColdFusion is an easy to use rapid development environment that enables users to create powerful server-side web applications very quickly. Creating web applications with ColdFusion requires less code than using similar technologies like ASP or PHP. ColdFusion is normally used for creating data-driven websites and intranets.

It provides many useful features, like simple database access, client-side code generation, conversion from HTML to PDF, and data retrieval from enterprise systems like Active Directory, LDAP, SMTP, POP, HTTP, FTP, and Microsoft Exchange Server. Also supported by ColdFusion is XML parsing, validation, and transformation, in addition to server clustering, task scheduling, graphing, and reporting.

Adobe ColdFusion release 2016 also features a security code analyzer that automatically detects vulnerabilities by scanning the application code. It also brings huge performance improvements to the ColdFusion engine that runs existing code up to 30% faster compared to the earlier release.

Adobe ColdFusion Builder 3 also introduces features like CFML based mobile app development, on-device debugging, multi-device inspection, and Linux support.

Getting Started with ColdFusion

If you have prior experience in working with integrated development environments (IDEs), setting up and using ColdFusion should not be too difficult.

Your ColdFusion Development Environment

Before you can start using ColdFusion, you’ll need to get your development environment set up. You have two easy options for this:

  • The first option is to download Adobe ColdFusion Developer Edition. This is a free and fully functional version of ColdFusion for local host development. The only limitation is that it can be accessed from only two remote IP addresses. Detailed installation instructions are available at the Adobe website.
  • If you just want to check out ColdFusion, you can also download ColdFusion Express edition, but keep in mind that it is not meant for production deployment and does not have the full functionality of ColdFusion. ColdFusion Express is not installed, you just unzip the archive and start it. Detailed instructions are available at the Adobe website. Features not supported by ColdFusion Express are SOLR service, Microsoft .NET platform, remote administration, and PDF creation.

Resources

While ColdFusion is losing appeal, you should still have no trouble finding useful tutorials, ebooks, and interactive online courses. We singled out a few of them:

Free Interactive Courses

Free interactive courses provide a good starting point to learning the basics of ColdFusion web development:

Additional Resources

Tutorials and references with code examples can be very useful, and many developers prefer to use resources with plenty of sample code. Here are some of the most comprehensive and detailed resources on ColdFusion:

Books

There are a lot of books on the many versions of ColdFusion, but we have decided to highlight just two of them:


Further Reading and Resources

We have more guides, tutorials, and infographics related to web development:

Ultimate Guide to Web Hosting

If you are going to be creating websites, you are going to need to host them somewhere. Check out our Ultimate Guide to Web Hosting. It will explain everything you need to know in order to make an informed choice.