ColdFusion MX 6.1 also features increased backward compatibility. Thanks to all the feedback from early adopters of ColdFusion MX, we were able to identify dozens of areas where we'd inadvertently broken compatibility. As a result, it should be much easier to bring forward your ColdFusion 5 and 4.5 applications.

New OS Support
There have been several important operating system upgrades since ColdFusion MX shipped, and many users have been clamoring for support for these operating systems. New to CFMX 6.1 are:

Of course, all currently supported platforms and operating systems remain supported.

Faster Development
By now just about everyone knows that CFMX is a compiler - it compiles CFML code to Java bytecode. Actually, that is almost true; what it actually does is generate Java source code corresponding to the original CFML, and then compiles that generated Java to bytecode.

I'm not going to explain the benefits of ColdFusion being a compiler (this has been covered before extensively). What I do want to point out is what many of you have already discovered: ColdFusion the compiler improves execution speed at runtime, but it hurts performance at development time. Why is this? The initial code generation and compile process is time consuming, and each time you tweak a CF tag and then try your change, ColdFusion has to go through that entire process again.

ColdFusion MX 6.1 comes with a brand new compiler, one that compiles from CFML to Java bytecode directly (without needing to generate Java source code and spawn another compiler). The result? Blinding fast execution, so fast that you'll likely not even notice the difference between the initial compile and subsequent requests.

In fact, the compiler is so fast that you may not want to bother saving the compiled .class files anymore. CFMX compiles to disk, the CFMX cfclasses directory contains a .class file for each .cfm file, and once compiled, ColdFusion accesses those .class files directly so as to not have to recompile the CFML source again. But in CFMX 6.1 the compiler is so fast that you'll likely find that there is no real value in storing the .class files. Instead, ColdFusion can compile to memory and execute the bytecode directly from there (this will also solve the problem that some of us ran into where .class files were left over or went out of synch). Of course, this will mean that if the server restarts, ColdFusion will need to recompile your .cfm files, but this process is so fast that it may be worth it (after all, checking file time stamps and reading .class files from disk takes time too).

ColdFusion MX 6.1 supports both compiling to disk (CFMX behavior) and compiling to memory. The ColdFusion Administrator lets you define how you'd like the compiler to behave.

Faster Runtime
The new compiler has no real impact on runtime, its job is to improve development time. But ColdFusion MX 6.1 improves runtime performance too. While exact numbers were not available at press time, initial testing using example application testing (identical applications on identical hardware) has shown significant performance gains even over ColdFusion MX (which was already faster than ColdFusion 5, which was already faster than... you get the idea).

Improved Protocols
The protocol tags are a very important part of the CFML language, and ColdFusion MX 6.1 improves and enhances them all. Key improvements include:

Improved <CFMAIL>
The most used Internet protocol tag has to be <CFMAIL>, and <CFMAIL> has been dramatically enhanced too. For starters, in ColdFusion MX 6.1 (Enterprise) it is possible to allocate multiple mail delivery threads, and also keep SMTP connections open. The combination of these two features introduces mail delivery throughput that exceeds anything possible in prior versions of ColdFusion. On test boxes <CFMAIL> has been clocked delivering over 1,000,000 messages an hour!

<CFMAIL> also now supports SMTP logins (required by many SMTP servers to prevent mail relaying). The <CFMAIL> attributes USERNAME and PASSWORD allow for the login information to be provided within the tag. (It is also possible to provide login information in the SMTP server definition in CF Admin).

Another frequently requested <CFMAIL> enhancement is support for multiple SMTP mail servers (so that if one is unavailable an alternate may be used). This is now supported in ColdFusion MX 6.1 (Enterprise) at both the CF Admin level and the <CFMAIL> level.

In addition, the new <CFMAILPART> tag allows developers to create multipart messages so that a single message may contain both HTML and text versions of the message body. The syntax looks like this:

<CFMAIL ...>
<CFMAIL PARAM ...>
<CFMAILPART type="text">
Text version goes here
</CFMAILPART>
<CFMAILPART type="html">
<B>HTML version goes here</B>
</CFMAILPART>
</CFMAIL>

Improved CFCs
ColdFusion Components (covered in detail in CFDJ, Volume 4, issues 6 and 7) are the most important CFML language enhancement in ColdFusion MX. ColdFusion MX 6.1 fixes several issues with CFCs, and adds the single most requested enhancement:

Other Bits and Pieces
There are also all sorts of other little goodies. For example:

Versioning Changes
Even if none of what I have mentioned thus far makes you sit up and take notice, this next one will.

With ColdFusion MX 6.1 we've changed the product editioning. ColdFusion Professional has been replaced by ColdFusion Standard, and ColdFusion Enterprise is now a combination of ColdFusion Enterprise and ColdFusion for J2EE (and we've even included a full version of JRun as well). What does this mean to you? As a ColdFusion Enterprise user you now have several different ways to install ColdFusion MX:

Summary
ColdFusion MX 6.1 is an important upgrade to an important product. If you are already using ColdFusion MX then 6.1 is free, and you'll enjoy greater performance and stability than ever before. And if you are not yet using ColdFusion MX, well, there couldn't be a better time to jump on board.