9 ways ColdFusion 8 will rule web development

Taken from: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/04/24/9-ways-coldfusion-8-will-rule-web-development/

Ben Forta and Adobe are getting into full swing with ColdFusion 8 Scorpio Pre-Release tour. Last night Ben gave us in Seattle a taste of things to come. Here is why it will kick the tar balls out of everything else on the market.

1. Built in AJAX widgets. Create AJAX windows, auto complete forms, calendar popups, grids, WYSIWYG editors, and much more. All using simple ColdFusion based tags and generating industry standard solutions such as Prototype and Yahoo User Interface Javascript.
2. Native JSON support. ColdFusion components now know if they are called by a web browser and will return JSON formated data automatically. You can also create JSON packets directly or consume them and turn them into native ColdFusion objects.
3. .NET (and Java!) integration. Pull in .NET objects and use them like native ColdFusion objects. Combine .NET and Java on the same page if you like. Easily the best web based middleware solution.
4. Microsoft Exchange integration. Love it or hate it, most organizations use Exchange religiously. Now you can read and update email, calendars, tasks and much more. No change to the Exchange server is required.
5. Flash based presentation builder. Combine HTML, Audio, Flash Movies, Images, and CFCharts to create spiffy flash based presentations on the fly. Just wrap your existing pages in CFPRESENTATION and you are on your way.
6. Full PDF integration. Create, combine, update, and interact with PDF files using CFPDF and CFPDFFORM tags.
7. Native image manipulation functions. Blur, sharpen, draw, rotate, stream to browser, and much much more. This finally brings ColdFusion's image support in line with PHP and other frameworks while keeping it so simple that even I could use it.
8. Across the board enhancements. Improvements in security, speed, Flash Forms, Report Builder, and more.
9. Administration API. Now you can access, audit, and snapshot all the information the server knows about itself. No longer is ColdFusion a black box. Audit long running processes, most frequently run queries, and bottle necks. SnapShot the server before making your change or doing a reset so that you can analyze potential problems later.

Admittedly I am a ColdFusion fan boy, but I know that it isn't for everyone. Still, ColdFusion is easily the BMW (both in price and in raw engineered quality) of the web application languages out there. With ColdFusion 8 it now becomes possible to build and integrate a vast amount of functionality with only a few lines of code. Imagine letting users quickly create their own presentation by uploading photos and editing slides using a WYSIWYG editor. Then, when they are all done, they can view and share it on the web via Flash or push it to a PDF file. ColdFusion 8 lets you wrap up all this up into a tight package using heavily documented yet extremely simple tags. No scripting required!
ColdFusion 8 Scorpio should land sometime in mid-2007. You know I'll be there.