Vince Bonfanti

Over the past few months I've had several conversations with developers that have all been pretty much the same. Here's a paraphrase of a recent one: "My management decided to standardize on , and my company isn't going to use ColdFusion anymore. "They're telling me I have to convert my existing CFML applications to run on the J2EE server so they can retire the old ColdFusion 4.5 and 5.0 servers. "The server admins say I have to package my applications into standard J2EE WAR files for deployment. I've looked at BlueDragon - the J2EE edition - and it seems to do everything I need. But when I told my management about it they said, 'Sorry, we've already said that you can't use ColdFusion - you'll have to rewrite it in JSP so that it'll be real J2EE.' "How am I going to rewrite everything in JSP? I don't know JSP! And it's going to ... (more)

Growing a Business with BlueDragon Server

How many times have you heard the question: "Why use CFML when you can use PHP, ASP, or JSP, which are all free?" With BlueDragon Server, one of three editions of BlueDragon from New Atlanta Communications, you can finally answer that question. It's a free – yes, really free – server for CFML. And if you've wanted to build and distribute CFML applications as products, with a bundled implementation of a CFML server, you can do that with BlueDragon as well, and for far less than the cost of CF5 or CFMX. In this month's column, I'd like to identify some of the business opportunities... (more)

J2EE Without EJBs?

Did you use EJBs in your last J2EE project? Many Java programmers (and their managers and CIOs) would consider this a strange question. "How can it be a J2EE project if it doesn't include EJBs?" they might ask. The answer is: Sun currently lists 11 J2EE component technologies of which EJB is but one; of equal importance are servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), and JDBC. In fact, a recently released research report by Gartner, Inc., reveals that most Java projects do not use EJBs, but rely exclusively on servlets/JSP. (While not specifically mentioned in the Gartner report, I would g... (more)

Making the Case for CFML

Many BlueDragon customers tell us they're being asked to defend their choice of CFML (ColdFusion Markup Lanuage) over JavaServer Pages (JSP). They need help making the argument that CFML and J2EE work well together, and that perhaps CFML is a better choice for presentation layer technology than JSP for developing J2EE Web applications. They know instinctively it's the right choice, but aren't quite sure how to build the case. As more organizations are standardizing on J2EE (and .NET) the issue of defending CFML will only become more urgent. The good news is that you've made the ... (more)

CFML Forever!

Since New Atlanta first announced BlueDragon about a year ago, we've been asked two common questions: "What is BlueDragon?" and "Why did you create it?" I thought a good starting point and introduction for my first column (which, hopefully, will become a regular CFDJ feature) would be to answer these questions, particularly the latter. Briefly, BlueDragon is a CFML scripting engine and runtime module that is implemented as a standard Java servlet. BlueDragon is packaged as a standalone server based on New Atlanta's ServletExec servlet/JSP engine, complete with its own built-in W... (more)