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ColdFusion
ColdFusion consists of the following components:
ColdFusion Markup Language
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ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is the proprietary scripting language used
to create ColdFusion pages. Its native tag-based structure resembles HTML,
but the tags are really just a unique way of constructing a parameter-based
way of accessing major built-in modules of functionality. There are over 60
tags. In addition, there are over 200 functions. With version 4, Allaire
introduced the CFSCRIPT tag which simplifies coding of program flow statements
including: if-else, while, do-while, for, break, continue, for-in, and switch-case.
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ColdFusion Application Server
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When a browser sends a page with a .CFM extension to a web server, the server
will pass it on to the ColdFusion Application Server to parse and execute the page.
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ColdFusion Studio
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ColdFusion Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for
ColdFusion. The interface of this IDE is basically Allaire Homesite
with built-in support of ColdFusion tags and syntax. There are visual
tools to create database queries, and debugging tools. ColdFusion Studio
also includes a version of ColdFusion Application Server that you can run
locally on Personal Web Server (PWS) for development testing.
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ColdFusion Administrator
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The ColdFusion Administrator is an application that lets you do things like
create and manage a variety of data sources (including ODBC, native, and OLE),
configure your server’s performance-related options and security settings,
etc. You can also set up scheduled page executions.
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ASP
ASP is frequently referred to as a "glue" language. The main reason people say
that is usually because it is recommended that you use Server Components
(Microsoft COM objects by any other name…) as much as possible because they
are precompiled code so they run much faster than scripted code which has to
be parsed and interpreted by the server.
ASP also tends to feel like "glue" in that it doesn’t have its own proprietary
language for scripting like PHP and ColdFusion do. VBScript is considered its
"native" language, but JScript (JavaScript) will work just as well. Those
aren’t even the only languages you could use, but they’re the most common,
and almost all tutorials and other documentation for ASP provide their examples
in VBScript.
The fact is, ASP has far less built-in functionality than ColdFusion or PHP.
There are numerous important tasks which are only available by purchasing
server components. If cost is a factor in your choice (ASP itself is free),
be sure to factor in the price of the server components you’ll need as they
can be fairly expensive.
ASP structures its built-in functionality in objects. For example, the Request
object holds information that is sent from the browser to the web server
including cookies and data from forms. The Response object is used to send
information from the web server back to the browser including cookies,
redirects and normal HTML. There is an Application object and a Session
object that facilitate the process of passing information between pages.
File and directory access is also set up to be worked with as objects.
In general, these built-in ASP objects are functionally equivalent to
many of the ColdFusion tags.
PHP
Probably the most significant factor is that PHP is open source. The good
things about that: it is free, and it is possible to customize the source
code to suit your special needs. The less attractive things about open
source is that there isn’t a single accountable commercial entity you can
hold responsible for providing support if you’re having problems. There is,
however, the support of a widely distributed and cooperative community.
There are several source repositories, many sites with tutorials, and
thriving, high volume mailing lists.
Using the PHP scripting language is fairly similar to using Perl. The
functionality is more directly accessed by basic commands and functions
than ColdFusion and ASP which tend to have multiple tasks performed by
a single, parameterized unit of functionality (ASP objects and ColdFusion tags)
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