You characterize me like so:

“I don’t really understand these other languages, and am too ignorant/stupid to learn them in any sort of depth …”

To be clear, I have actually used:

ASP
ASP.net
PHP
JSP/Java

.. among many other web specific languages and frameworks.

I’ve only dabbled with Ruby, ColdFusion, Web Objects and others. Nonetheless, given my experience with other languages/frameworks, I am able to assess these technologies reasonably well.

I’ve found that each language can shine in the right situation. That said, it makes sense to me that (overall) web designers learn PHP … for all the reasons I mentioned above.

Thanks for commenting.

Stefan

“Uhhh, I don’t really understand these other languages, and am too ignorant/stupid to learn them in any sort of depth, therefore they must suck!”

Real bright guy you are…

That said, I really don’t think that PHP and ColdFusion compare well… especially from the perspective of the small shop with small-budget clients. ColdFusion excels in the custom software space, where its RAD strengths really shine. In the low-budget shared-server market where you want to use Plesk to turn on the shopping cart and forums, yeah, PHP has a head start.

I think they serve different markets and therefore don’t do well being compared to eachother… especially since both are used to build thousands of very capable websites every year.

Well perhaps things have turned around for ColdFusion … to be honest, I haven’t looked at it in years.

Last time I looked into CF, it was just rebuilt using Java. Actually, ColdFusion became a JSP taglib collection on steroids.

… I remember drolling over the chart creation capabilities.

That said, I still believe that for most, PHP is the better solution.

Consider this one business example:

It is not uncommon for people who already have websites up, to want to add new dynamic features- shopping carts, blogs etc .. From my experience, they are not likely to want to move everything to a ColdFusion enabled server.

.. I am assuming that they will probably not already be on CF server. And it is probably safe to say, they will very likely be on a PHP enabled server.

Stefan

You also mentioned free apps. There are -many- free ColdFusion apps out there. Just check out http://www.riaforge.org for an example. I know for a fact you can find free CF blogs, forums, wikis, etc. (And yes, I’m biased as I’ve released many myself, but the point is still true.)

Re: PHP vs ColdFusion points 1 & 2:

Costs:
The developer version (for development, period… no timeout, few restrictions) IS free, and the production options range from $9/month hosting from a shared host to a production license that actually costs LESS than the equivalent license from Zend.

Community:
Since the size of the community programs at Adobe have tripled since they took over, it’s fair to say that the community is growing. ColdFusion has been flourishing over the last 3-5 years. I think you should tell all the people I know (numbering in the hundreds) who make their livings EXCLUSIVELY using ColdFusion and Java on the server side that the community is dying and they’re in a losing proposition… especially since a good many of them make 6 figures.

Summation:
ColdFusion is a powerful server-side programming platform that makes integrating with almost anything out there very easy (since Java 1.6 we can even run PHP and Ruby code within the ColdFusion server). It has a large and flourishing community, hundreds of open-source projects, and an ever-growing number of available job opportunities.

http://www.killersites.com/wordpress/

Why would I mention this on killerphp.com? Simple really, Wordpress is one of the reasons to learn PHP (IMHO) since Wordpress is created with PHP.

Stefan

You said:

“… it’s clear to me that all I’ll do is poke someone’s eye out with it.”

Funny stuff.

Stefan

I am taking your advice and focusing on PHP.

I looked at some JAVA code recently, and it’s clear to me that all I’ll do is poke someone’s eye out with it.

Much too dangerous for a meager designer geek like me.

Thanks for the tip!

I’m enjoying your videos, and hopefully people won’t just pick one language. Latin is a dying language, yet if you learn it, it’s quite interesting and has many advantages of knowing it. I’m so far in your “PHP Includes” category, and so far so good. I don’t really need to code myself as of now, since I understand everything you’ve shown on them. I’m awaiting your progress on MySQL, but so far so good.