Why migrate from ColdFusion to ASP.NET?
There's a thread on the CF-Talk mailing list on which this statement was made:
For what it's worth, it's almost never a good idea to switch from CF to .NET, or vice-versa, if you have any significant investment in application code. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just angling for your money.I happen to disagree with that statement, so I offered this response:
There are many good reasons to stay with CF rather than switching to .NET, but there are also many good reasons to switch from CF to .NET, as we've seen many companies do over the past few years (starting with MySpace.com). I'm not advocating that anyone *should* make that switch, but here are some of the reasons we've heard from people who have made the switch (not necessarily in any particular order):CF is a good tool, but so is ASP.NET. There are legitimate benefits to both technologies, and reasonable, competent people can and do choose one or the other (or choose to switch from one to the other) based on their needs. Saying that someone should "put down the crack pipe if he thinks it's a good idea to switch from CF to .NET" is not reasonable nor technically sound advice, and does not make a positive contribution to any rational discussion of the topic.I realize I have to tread carefully in this forum, so again, I'm not advocating that anyone should switch from CF to .NET, but am disputing Dave's statement that, "it's almost never a good idea to switch from CF to .NET" by pointing out that there are many organizations for whom it has in fact been a very good idea, and listing some of the reasons why.
- Licensing costs. Some people balk at paying $7500 per CPU pair for CF Enterprise when ASP.NET is included in Windows at no cost. I understand that CF Standard is $1300 per server, and that for a small number of servers even the $7500 per 2-CPU cost can be small compared to overall project costs. But, for someone with dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of servers, the CF license costs can become a real obstacle.
- Performance and reliability. Some people find they get better performance and reliability of their web applications running .NET rather than CF.
- Developer tools. Some people find that the tools available for ASP.NET development--especially Visual Studio--are superior to tools available for CF development.
- Developer availability. Some people find it's easier to hire trained, experienced ASP.NET developers than it is to find and hire trained, experienced CF developers.
Since I'm sure to be accused of "just angling for your money" anyway, let me point out that BlueDragon.NET can be very effective in helping you migrate from CF to .NET while preserving your investment in CFML code.
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Think about it. CF is built on Java. Java isn't included with Windows by default, but .Net is. More so .Net is being integrated into more and more Microsoft products.
Take SQL Server 2005 for instance. You can now write function and SSIS packages with pure .Net. The beauty about this is that someone who using .Net for developing web apps will easily be able to use .Net for developing in SQL Server. Even further, you can use .Net to write Windows services and applications. Now how many CF programmers out there know how to do that.
I'm a CF junky, always have and always will be, but I can see how .Net is growing more and more in the workplace because of these integrations that Microsoft is doing. Too many people think that writing web apps is the heart of most businesses and they don't stop to think about all the other custom applications a company writes.