- ColdFusion, a product from Macromedia, is a popular and sophisticated set of products for building Web sites and serving pages to users. With ColdFusion, a company can build a content database using input templates and combine these with application programs to create a Web site in which pages are developed dynamically as they are served. ColdFusion consists of ColdFusion Studio, which is used to build a site, and ColdFusion Server, which serves the pages to users. ColdFusion Studio is described as "a complete integrated development environment (IDE)" and ColdFusion Server as "a deployment platform."
The most valuable feature for many companies that use ColdFusion is the ability to build Web sites as "piece parts" that can be stored in a database and then reassembled for Web pages, e-mail newsletters, and other uses. ColdFusion provides a visual interface for building Web pages directly or for building the "piece parts." For example, a newspaper with a Web site can have a reporter enter a story, dateline, author, and other information, using a text entry form free of all Web page formatting and structure details or language tags. (The newspaper uses ColdFusion to design the forms and to define the database.) The content entered by the reporter is later gathered and formatted into a Web page when it is requested. The reporter is free from having to understand HTML and other details. ColdFusion is also a popular tool for building e-commerce sites.
ColdFusion has its own page markup language, called ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). CFML encompasses the Web's Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML). A just-in-time (JIT) compiler turns the CFML into the pages that get served. Microsoft emphasizes that their product set is open and "extensible". Applications can access databases using Microsoft's OLE DB, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), or drivers that access Oracle and Sybase databases. ColdFusion can be coordinated with distributed applications that use Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) or Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to interact with other network applications.
 |
Learn more about Web services development |
| Operating system virtualization and Web services: Web services development and operating systems virtualization may be two different types of abstraction, but virtualization techniques look like they can have positive impact. |
| Creating rich Web service clients with Flash and Flex: Flash and Flex, titans within the RIA universe, now have XML, Ajax and scripting language functionality that make them better suited for Web services development. |
| Oracle links SOA, data services, BI and BAM: When it comes to incorporating data services, business intelligence (BI), and business activity monitoring (BAM), Oracle has not lost sight of its database roots. |
| Is Ruby on Rails ready for enterprise SOA?: Ruby on Rails promises ease in RESTful SOA development, but for it to move up to enterprise class, developers need to know how to make it scalable. |
| 2006 JavaOne coverage: A compilation of stories written about the JavaOne conference held in San Francisco this past May. |
| Chapter of the week: Security and Ajax: This chapter, excerpted from Ajax in Action, discusses security-related concerns that have particular implications for Ajax. |
| Chapter of the week: XML Web services: This chapter, excerpted from Core C# and .NET, takes a look at the pluses and minues of implementing and consuming Web services in a .NET environment. |
| Chapter of the week: Working with Beehive Web services and JSR 181: This chapter, excerpted from Pro Apache Beehive, explores the Web service capabilities that are a part of Apache Beehive. You'll learn about JSR 181, Web Services Metadata for the Java ... |
| Chapter of the week: Introduction to Web services technologies: This chapter, excerpted from Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services, focuses on the standards that make up the Web services platform and how Web ... |
| LAST UPDATED: |
23 Apr 2004
|
 |
Do you have something to add to this definition? Let us know.
Send your comments to techterms@whatis.com
|

 |
More resources from around the web:
|


');
// -->



|