CFhas been rewritten using Java technology, and is much more than just a way for Web pages to interact with databases.

You could say that the fax machine revolutionized the business world. No more waiting for contracts as they made their slow progression from one mailbox to another. No more days and weeks passing as you shuttled layouts to your client, and they sent back the revisions and you sent back new layouts....It ate into companies' profits.

But with the fax machine, anything that could be put on a piece of paper could be sent anywhere in the world in a fraction of the time needed to physically ship it. There was one catch, of course: you needed a fax machine. Two, actually. For the fax machine to be the effective tool it became, there needed to be a fax machine in every office.

Now I have to tell you, I fell in love with ColdFusion back with version 1.0. I had come out of the dBase/Clipper environment, and CF was like an old friend. My very first CF application was a sort of shopping cart sometime before online shopping really caught on. Writing it was a cinch, considering that my other option at the time was Perl, which I was still largely unfamiliar with. The only catch to providing applications in CF is, of course, that you need a host that provides it. In the very beginning, CF didn't look to be poised to be the next fax machine.

That could be changing. With 75 of the Fortune 100 companies using ColdFusion, there is certainly a chance that CF will overtake more commonly available scripting languages like CGI or ASP. It seems likely to this developer, at least. Maybe I'm biased.

Since Macromedia acquired Allaire, I'm sure that the CF world has been awaiting with much anticipation (and perhaps apprehension?) the newest version of ColdFusion. ColdFusion MX, now a Macromedia product, has been released with greater connectivity to Web standards and powerful features to enhance the end user's experience. Integrated tools are available to put it all together. This product is more than repackaging or slapping on a new nametag.

This review is not a tag-by-tag description. I'm a developer who uses CF day in and day out. You other developers, you can listen up, even though I know you're probably already itching to get your hands on this. But hosting providers should pay attention as well. If you told your clients you didn't have a fax machine, you'd be subjected to a few seconds of stunned silence. Don't let that happen when people ask you if you provide CF.

Installing ColdFusion MX
The version I tested was CFMX beta 3. I installed it on a PC running Windows 2000. CFMX comes with a standalone Web server, which I used for my testing. The standalone server won't do the job as a functioning server, but for a development workstation it's more than adequate.

Since I already had CF 4.5 running on this system, the CFMX installer needed to migrate my settings. This was smooth, but it wasn't very fast as I have perhaps a dozen datasources set up. This may be a consideration for those migrating a server to the new version. Installation and migration were troublefree - much less painful than I had anticipated. Just so you know, you can test your code using the Code Compatibility Analyzer before you move to CFMX so you can identify any potential problems before you upgrade.

The first thing I did, of course, was run one of my existing CF applications. When I opened my eyes, why, there was my good old CF application, right where I left it and sitting quite happily on its new, more robust perch! What about the Java? Some people may tend to shy away from Java-based programs, since in past experience they're "too slow," or, in the words of one user, "they sucked." But even on my somewhat pedestrian workstation, CFMX provided speed equal to or better than my old version. This wasn't an official speed test, mind you, but it counted in my book. Additionally, I've seen other comments indicative of a performance increase using CFMX.

Some Cool Stuff
CFMX is "rearchitected" to run on the Java platform. This is certainly a Cool Thing, because it can not only encourage more developers who are looking for a wider audience, but it may also motivate more hosts to provide CF. My experience has been that, while CF has the power to provide what my clients want, finding a CF host can be a...well, let's just say that's it's been instructive. Granted, it's much easier to find a CF host than it was a few years ago, but if more hosts will come on board with CF, it may just become the Web's new "fax machine."

There are a number of new tags and functions in CFMX, including a whole set for XML support. First off, though, you'll want to wrap your brain around ColdFusion components (CFCs), which I thought were pretty cool. Now all of us, hopefully, develop CF apps using some sort of components (using CFINCLUDE or passing params using CFMODULE) to reuse common code. The problem comes when someone else wants to use our code. Some poor sap has to figure out what parameters to pass to your template, and what he'll get back (even though it's fully documented...right?). Okay, so maybe you don't document your components as well as you could. CFCs encapsulate their functionality so that you need only to call the component to display documentation about its methods and the parameters those methods require. If you're a developer...c'mon, self-documenting code? You'd be crazy not to want it.

Another thing to look at is Web services. CFMX provides easy-to-use syntax to hook up with Web services based on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Using this standard, CFMX applications can interact with services using such technologies as ASP.NET, Java, or PHP. This is a Cool Thing for intranet developers who need to combine various technologies. ColdFusion-based services can also be provided to these other platforms through the SOAP standard.

Before printing technology caught up, fax machines used that flimsy thermal paper. So not only did you need a new machine in every office, but now they all needed to have special media to display what you had. With CFMX you get native integration to the Flash player, which - according to Macromedia - is installed in 98% of the browsers accessing the Web. Sounds like the paper comes with the fax machine, eh?

Now, I have to say I'm not really a "rich content" sort of developer. For the most part, my clients' needs are simple, and simplicity is a way to keep costs and development time down. That said, I'm starting to think that developing rich client interfaces using Flash may be my new direction. Honestly, as the broadband market expands, users will expect a richer experience as they interact with your Web site. Web users are increasingly less technical and more consumer oriented. If you've got an online catalog, it had better be an easy, even fun, shopping experience or your customers may just go to your competition (or to the mall).

One difficulty I've had with online shopping apps is that everything has to be based on page calls, unless you're using browser-based scripting or something to augment your CF code. Using Flash integration, CF can interact with your application on the browser, with Flash as a gateway handling the client/server communication. Using Flash, you could write a drag-and-drop shopping application, making the experience more interactive and easier to use, and limiting the need for page reloads.

Naturally, making full use of all these great features requires the right tools. Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Fireworks MX, and Freehand 10 are available in a separate Studio MX package. A subsequent article will review these products.

So...
I used to think that since I already had a basic familiarity with languages similar to CF, my ease in learning it was because of that. Having been a lurker in CF newsgroups and on Macromedia's forums, I find that, along with seasoned coders, all types of programming newbies seem to gravitate to ColdFusion. It really is an easy language to learn. That right there is a good reason to use it.

I've been developing with CF for years. I have to admit that in the beginning it seemed a small chance that CF would last against "free" scripting languages like Perl and ASP. Each year, though, I've seen ".cfm" pages on more and more of the interactive sites that I visit. ColdFusion is not struggling against a current of ubiquitous and less expensive platforms. In fact, it's much more of an equal. Like the fax machine, general acceptance is necessary, but the future looks bright for CF.

I think every major release of ColdFusion has included something that wows me. Heck, I'm still impressed with "query of queries." I'm sure a number of developers are probably sitting on a stable system, happy with CF as it stands. A balance must be struck between the knee-jerk "ooh! A new toy!" reaction and the more sedate "let's see..." reaction. That said, a trial version is available, and CFMX won't overwrite your old ColdFusion installation. My suggestion is to at least try it (you know you want to).

Perhaps you're on the fence about it. CFMX is not about ColdFusion, but about using CF along with all the other tools and services on the Web. There are sites that use Flash, and the owners of those sites may never have heard of ColdFusion. But CFMX can be used to make their sites better. CFMX adds functions to read and write XML, something every developer needs to do at one time or another. CFCs provide self-documenting taglike components, usable from any Web application. "Better results with less effort" is the Macromedia pitch. I've found it to be true for a few years now. CFMX opens up the door for lots of others to find that out as well.

For you intranet developers, especially those that are integrating multiple platforms, I think CFMX is a good move only because it expands your ability to interact with these platforms while providing the easy-to-learn CF scripting environment.

For you hosting companies, I'll give you a single compelling reason to buy or upgrade to CFMX: the fax machine. You could be one of the early providers of the "fax machine" of the Web, and people will come to your service because you provide what they want. Certainly, there are major corporations that use CF and they're another impetus. But what made fax machines work was not that IBM or Citibank had them. What made a difference is that in just a few years every office in the world had a fax machine, and your business was a curiosity if you didn't.

• Figure 1