Re: site design II - databasing it

Looks like I get to prattle on some more about freedom.

First, NT/ASP is not free in either sense of the term.  I don't know where
that came from.

PHP is not just cost-free, it's also open-source and released under the GNU
public license.  Cold Fusion, while a completely adequate development
environment, is neither free nor open.

"But, Jeff," you say, "who cares?"

Harrumph.  I guess I do, along with thousands of other developers.  It's the
Debian "when code matters more than commercials" idea.  If the company drops
the product or goes out of business, what are you going to do?  Patches and
upgrades won't be available, etc...  Anyway, while I think open-source is a
sound business move, there are other more pertinent reasons to choose PHP.

I'm not saying that CF wouldn't get the job done.  It certainly will.
However, PHP is just as fast to learn and easy to develop in, the syntax
skills you learn are transferable, and you don't have to depend on a huge,
sluggish company for product support.

I never said CF was a "bad deal" or that folks who use it are "duped."  It's
just been my experience that using PHP with mySQL is less pricey and costs
less over the long haul, using Mike's terms.  Price/cost seemed to be a
concern of the original post, right?  So there you are.  My opinion is based
on my experience.  Mike's opinion and experience are different.
Whoop-de-do!  :)

So it goes.

He's also in Winter and I'm in Summer.

G'day!

-Jeff


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Kear" <choicemag(at)hotmail.com>
To: <jeff(at)cosmiczombie.com>; <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>;
<owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>; <allred(at)its.state.ms.us>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: site design II - databasing it


> Jeff keeps on about FREE FREE FREE.  But in fact, if PRICE were the
> significant factor, Allaire's ColdFusion wouldn't exist.  After all, it
> compete's with the apparently 'FREE' PHP and MySQL, and the 'FREE'
> Apache/Perl combination and the 'FREE' NT/ASP combination. (ALL of which
> I've developed with.
>
> If PRICE were the dominant factor, the company would have gone out of
> business years ago. In all likelihood, wouldn't have got off the ground at
> all.
>
> But in fact it's not PRICE that's the dominant factor here at all, but
COST.
>    Price is but one factor going to make up the cost of a web site.  And
> figuring out the overall cost isn't anywhere near as straightforward.  If
> ColdFusion weren't cost effective, there wouldn't be the thousands of
sites
> using it, ranging from tiny (www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com) to vast
> (www.toysrus.com).  If ColdFusion were such a bad deal financially, you
> wouldn't see enormous numbers of people duped like that, you'd see a few.
>
> But that's not to say it's the ONLY good deal around.
>
> On my Choice site (www.choice.com.au) we have ASP, Plain HTML flat files,
> ColdFusion files, javascript calculators - we use the tools that suit the
> job, and the skills that work for the people we have available to complete
a
> project.   It's not a simple choice at all.
>
> However, I'm persuaded by what I've been able to accomplish in less than 9
> months working with ColdFusion - I've done more in that short time than
with
> any other technology I've had to learn in nearly 30 years in IT. I'm
> gradually moving my business to work exclusively in ColdFusion, because I
> think that's going to provide my company with the way to give the most
value
> in the shortest time for my clients.
>
> Not everyone is going to agree.  And I dont mind. There's plenty of work
to
> go round.  Every successful site breeds a dozen more, and none of us can
> handle it all.  This is a growth market, and there's room for all of us
and
> plenty more besides.
>
> In the words of a favourite song of mine:  "You go to your church and I'll
> go to mine and we'll walk along together."   You build your web sites your
> way, and I'll build mine my way, and who gives a damn as long as the end
> result is a site that does what the owner wants it to do.
>
> I'm certainly not going to enter into a useless "mine is better than
yours"
> argument.  High school kids grow out of that, and we ought to as well.
>
>
> And I'm sorry, John, I know there was a discussion about the free
coldfusion
> hosting but I didn't follow it up.  I dont use free sites, because they
> never are free. My clients wouldn't stand for other peoples' ads appearing
> in their sites.  Again this is not to say they're a bad thing, just that
my
> client's wouldn't go for it.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike Kear
> AFP Web Development
> Windsor, NSW, Australia.

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