ColdFusion MX on Mac OS X

kylner writes "This seemed to be one of the lesser-covered news items at Macworld, but it seems that Macromedia has decided to release its JRun 4 J2EE Server for Mac OSX. What's siginificant about this release? Well, they simultaneously released Macromedia ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers to go with it! It may not be a stand-alone edition of ColdFusion MX, but this is still a dream item for any ColdFusion developer with a Mac at home. It took me about 30 minutes to install on my iBook 600 (I messed up a few times since it requires a little terminal work) but once I got it up and running it just worked. All I've had time to do so far is create a variable and output 'Hello World', but so far so good."

Re:Or

[sporty]

Because the world doesn't revolve around apache and php.

Re:Or

[override11]

No, you are an Anonymous Coward, you are the weakest link, goodbye...

Re:Or

[sporty]

To reply to a troll, 'cause apparently the post i replied to couldn't figure it out either.

Maybe because...

[HaloZero]

The developer wanted to use ColdFusion, and not PHP. Don't get me wrong, I know and love PHP (not as much as I love Perl, mind you, but still.), but there are times when... a little diversity is a good thing. Say for instance, you're developing something with a team of people, none of which know PHP, but do know ColdFusion as a common language among them. Are you either going to try and teach them PHP (something they may not want to learn, if they haven't ventured off to do it on their own, yet) or just get the project done with ColdFusion. If it works, it works, and it's good. The first priority is getting the job done, then going over semantics. If the customer or supervisor wants the task re-done in PHP, over ColdFusion, then so be it. Different tools for different jobs, but keep in mind, There's More Than One Way To Do It [perl.org] . :-)

Re:Or

[kylner]

I AM running Apache with PHP installed, and I am working on learning how to develop with PHP. However, my first foray into web app development was with ColdFusion. Additonally, the site I work for hosts under ColdFusion. I'll be the first to say that PHP isn't that difficult to learn, but if I hadn't been introduced to ColdFusion (arguably easier to learn than PHP from a noob's standpoint) and gotten some background in development I'd probably still be smashing my skull against a wall. At the end of the day it's about using the right instrument for the job- and now that I have two web scripting environments running on my dev box I can actually make the attempt to write an app/site using both as an exercise to keep my skills cross-platform.

Re:Or

[entrylevel]

How about:

1) He wanted ColdFusion, not PHP.

2) Apache and PHP (and even mod_perl) come pre-installed even on the client version.

Because PHP and Apache come pre-installed

[Anonymous Coward]

And PHP ain't Coldfusion.

I work in and like PHP, but Coldfusion is much nicer. You pay for it and it isn't open, but CF has a lot going for it in terms of performance, portability and comprehensibility. I mention the last because PHP, Perl, ASP can be rough to maintain for casual developers. CF's tag-based approach is like having an immense and time-tested library of JSP tags which are largely in plain english so it is relatively easy to read.

up and running

[Gregg Alan]

> but once I got it up and running it just worked.

Good thing! I hate to see you get it up and running and then it still not work.

Wow, ColdFusion?

[Nick of NSTime]

Someone's living in the 90s!

Re:Wow, ColdFusion?

[kanna]

I tried to move away from ColdFusion and start using JSP or PHP. But it's like moving from a Mac to wintel machines... ugh ugh ugh. I came back like 3 times (tried PHP, went back to CFML, tried JSP, went back to CFML and tried PHP again and went back again). The ease of use of CFML beats anything that's out there. I'm glad they're porting CFMX to Mac (although they could make the installation process easier)... They go well together...

Re:Wow, ColdFusion?

[kylner]

Agreed. If you have a programmer's background then PHP should be absolute cake since it seems to have a very Perl-esque syntax. But I started as an art major and moved into web graphic design right out of college. However, for someone with more of a graphic art/web design background I found CFML far more intuitive to use and learn. As a result I found that I had a better understanding of how PHP works when I took a second look at it.

Coldfusion is a language?

[rollthelosindice]

I thought it was a program.

Re:Coldfusion is a language?

[glenmark]

I thought it was a program.

CF is a languange and an environment in which it runs on your webserver. Somewhat similar to ASP. It allows you to add tags (essentially an extension to html) which allow you to do things like easily accessing a database. Very popular where I work for accessing SQL databases.

With Tomcat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you using it with Tomcat or JRun?

I've been using CF on OS X for a while now, thanks to the oreillynet.com guide to installing it. Runs great!

However, it would be nice to use Tomcat since I could change the port to 80 instead of having port 8080 cluttering up my development URLs.

For those thinking about installing, here are the instructions:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/c oldfusion/j2ee/ cfmx-mac-onjrunandtomcat.html

Re:With Tomcat?

[kylner]

This was my first time installing a J2EE server so I decided to just go with using JRun. However, according to the installation instructions you can set it up running under Tomcat. Haven't tried it in practice yet.

Yes! and no more ugly 8080! Re:With Tomcat?

[Anonymous Coward]

As part of the ongoing comments on oreillynet's story on installing ColdFusion for Mac OS X, the author of the series indicates that it works well with Tomcat and that the port 8080 goes away. Link to the original installation guide is on the comment page below. Author Disck Applebaum also hints that his forthcoming Part 4 will take into account the new announcements.

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/13 02 2

You mean port 8500? Re:With Tomcat?

[phloda]

Previously running CF and JRun meant your port was 8500 not 8080. Just look at the terminal as you start up CF: 01/08 13:02:31 info JRun Web Server listening on *:8500

JRun vs Tomcat?

[frankie]

Which of these options would run better on my dear old PowerBook G3 (with 640MB RAM)? My department uses a lot of ColdFusion, so it would be handy to run a local copy, as long as it isn't massively boggy.

Interesting?

[Euphonious Coward]

So, you're saying a proprietary development tool has been ported to a proprietary platform.

Don't we have any nice Free alternatives yet, already ported throughout the known universe? (I thought we had dozens, but I don't use that stuff.)

Re:Interesting?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Ah. It seems you are learning a valuable lesson: what you consider to be "proprietary" is not inherently bad. What you consider to be "Free" is not inherently good. The world is not a battle of "us versus them" (or in this case, "you versus us") but rather a bunch of people all struggling to make their way together.

One should use the best tool for the job, based on one's own judgment. If one uses a second-best tool simply because it is "Free," then one is still using a second-best tool.

Re:Interesting?

[Euphonious Coward]

Hazy Twirlip wrote: '"proprietary" is not inherently bad'.

Sorry, but for a language, it is. When the vendor flops or gets bought and closed, your code turns to dust. I've seen it happen too many times.

With the number of Free tools that are as good as or much better than CF, their days seem numbered.

Re:Interesting?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

When the vendor flops or gets bought and closed, your code turns to dust. I've seen it happen too many times.

You should know better. Code doesn't stop working when a vendor goes away.

With the number of Free tools that are as good as or much better than CF, their days seem numbered.

It startles me, in this day and age, just how common that misconception still is.

Re:Interesting?

[Lussarn]

You should know better. Code doesn't stop working when a vendor goes away.

Depends on if you want to get rooted. Security patches are important for this kind of product.

FYI

[fonebone]

The reason ColdFusion can be ported easily now is because CFMX was rewritten in Java. now all Macromedia has to do is port their JRun server and voila, ColdFusion is ready to work. Keep in mind that you don't need to run JRun specifically to use ColdFusion; any java web server will work.

THIS ROCKS! KICK @SS!

[boy_afraid]

As a long time ColdFusion programmer, since 1995 with ColdFusion 1.5, I've doing some great work with it and my last project I had to us it in a Solaris/Apache environment. It is a little more tricker to get it running in *nix than Windoze, but it works just the same. CF is just sooooo much easier and faster to work with than PHP/ASP, but just sooooo powerful. Now with MX on Java, it just gets better because it is more compatible and can communicate with many more servers and services. I already have an iMac with OS X and now I can do some work with Apache and just add it to my skillset.

Installed, but doesn't "just work"

[gqgreg]

I seem to have successfully installed JRun but I'm running into issues on the CFMX install for OS X. I was unable to successfully implement step 4 of "Install CFMX for JRun", which is:

If the JRun server to which you are deploying ColdFusion MX is running, stop it. You can stop a JRun server either through the JRun Management Console (JMC) or the command line.

I can't figure out how to launch JMC or use the command line to stop/start JRun server. I'm assuming this is the problem keeping me from getting CFMX server to run on my machine. Also, how you set Apache for OS X to use index.cfm pages as default? I can't find the config file. I'm a novice at Apache, and I've never used JRun, but I am comfortable w terminal commands.

thx

[gqgreg]

This is good concise instruction, that was sadly left out of the CFMX install readme. I suppose it assumes you know how to use JRun from the command line, or to use JRun in general. Well, I don't, so its good to have discussion boards to figure these things out... its not exactly easy to figure out in JRun documentation either.