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Cold Fusion

It seems like most have heard of MS FrontPage but few people, never involved in web site building, have heard of ColdFusion.

Is FrontPage better?... No way!...
It just makes building a web site, with a lot of problems and errors, easy.

Let us educate you a bit...

ColdFusion was developed by the Allaire Corporation (Nasdaq: ALLR) to be a simple to use yet powerful alternative to Perl and other CGI technologies. With est:140 000 developers world-wide now using ColdFusion, it is safe to say they have succeeded!

So what, exactly is ColdFusion?
It is a Web Application Server:

ColdFusion is an application that runs on a web server. Currently, it runs on Linux, Solaris, and Windows Servers. (yes, even personal web server on win98) The ColdFusion Web Application Server works with the HTTP server to process requests for web pages. Whenever a ColdFusion page is requested, the ColdFusion Application Server executes the script or program the page contains.

It is a programming Language?

ColdFusion is a language. It can create and modify variables just like other languages you may be familiar with. It has program flow controls like "IF, Switch Case, Loop, etc". It has many built in functions for performing more complicated tasks (like finding what day the 3rd of august will be in 2007 "DayOfWeekAsString(DayOfWeek('2007/08/03'))"

It is a Database Language?

OK, not a Database Language, but ColdFusion makes interacting with your database (Sybase, Oracle, MySQL, SQL, or Access) simple. Using standard SQL (Structured Query Language) your web pages and web applications can easily retrieve, store, format, and present information dynamically.

It is Tag Based?

If you are comfortable with HTML you will love CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language). Many of ColdFusions powerful features (Like reading from and writing to the servers hard drive) are tag based. Just like a <Table> tag can take "arguments" like 'width' or 'align', the <CFFILE> tag takes "arguments" specifying 'action=read/write/copy/delete', 'path=' etc.

It Integrates Technologies:

Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to write all the JavaScript for your pages?
The CF tag <CFFORM> will automatically build all the JavaScript code to verify required fields before the form submits.
ColdFusion also has tags to embed COM, Corba, and Java Applets/Servlets.

It is Scalable?

ColdFusion was designed to build complex, high traffic web sites. Sometimes a web designers biggest problem is that a site becomes popular. ColdFusion is designed to run on multi-processor machines, and allows you to build a site that can be run on a "cluster" of servers.

It is a "Server Side" Language?

Unlike JavaScript, and Java Applets, which run on the "client", or "web browser", ColdFusion runs on the Web Server. This means that scripts you write in ColdFusion will run the same way on Every Browser.

Why would you use ColdFusion?

ColdFusions' "ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) makes web programming easy for new developers. With 70+ CFML tags and over 200 custom functions practically any web application can be built quickly. Tools like the server side includes "<CFINCLUDE>" help speed the development and improve the readability of any web site.

ColdFusion can be used on your web site whenever you need customer interaction. Use it to process forms, make parts of your web site "secure", and gather or publish data. You can use it to build web applications like bulletin boards, pop mail clients, online-calendars, and chat rooms. ColdFusion scripts can be written to track hits, clicks, return visits and other valuable traffic statistics.

So, in a nutshell, why does DeluxeSites.com use ColdFusion?

Basically, if you have plans to have a web site built that is more than just an advertisement for your business ColdFusion enables many more functions. You can spend a large amount of time building a site and, over the years, adding more ideas and therefore more complexity and more functions. In less complex programming than ColdFusion, such as MS Frontpage, it is actually possible to dead-end. That is, you come to a point that an idea that is not possible. It is at that time, after hundreds of hours of designing, that you decide your site needs to be rebuilt in a more suitable platform. What a waste of time and money!

We hope this information helps you make a better decision of how to have your web site built.