Smith - Open Source ColdFusion — An Architect's View

Smith - Open Source ColdFusion

May 7, 2007 · 8 Comments

Well, we knew it was coming at some point... Today, the Smith Project went open source! They support CFCs now but there are still quite a few red X's on the tag/function support charts. It'll be interesting to see how well they support CFCs, since that's been one of the big bugaboos with BlueDragon according to a lot of folks I've spoken to. Compatibility is certainly king when you're paying for a cloned product and BlueDragon falls short there: it doesn't run several popular ColdFusion frameworks (but, by comparison, Railo work very hard to ensure they run those frameworks). How will people measure a free open source product? Will they cut it more slack on compatibility? Clearly, with all the innovation coming in Scorpio at the high-end and Smith entering the field at the low end, the game is going to change. 2007 looks like being an incredible year to be a ColdFusion developer!

FWIW, the basic download and run option does not work on a Mac - it fails with a Null Pointer Exception.

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Tags: coldfusion · oss

8 responses so far ↓

1 Stephen Moretti // May 8, 2007 at 6:15 AM

*Shameless Plug*

If you want to meet and talk to people close to 3 of the CFML Engines, namely Scorpio, BlueDragon and Railo, you should come to Scotch on the Rocks in Edinburgh at the end of this month. (Noone from Smith unfortunately)

There are still some tickets at the bargain price of £85 for 2 days - for more information http://scotch.scottishcfug.com/
2 Dave Shuck // May 8, 2007 at 6:28 AM

We had a discussion about this on the DFWCFUG email list yesterday. I made the comment that I think it is interesting that they support <cfobject> but not CreateObject. From my completely speculative view (with my vast experience of creaating CFML engines!), it would seem that once you solve one of those, the other would naturally follow. I wonder if the move to open source will allow for more contributions and faster maturation of the product, or if it will just be an easier way for them to say "Sorry, we don't support ______"
3 Rey Bango // May 8, 2007 at 7:18 AM

I agree Sean. I think this year will be a very good year for CF developers and all of the CF engines.

Scorpio is looking very strong in beta and BD 7.0 has already shown that it has greatly improved its performance capabilities and incorporated some very unique and exciting capabilities.

With Smith now being open source, it greatly expands to choices for CF developers and at the very least, begins to shut down some of the CF critics whose only argument against CF has been cost.
4 Russ Johnson // May 8, 2007 at 10:54 AM

I think that not having this opensource version of a CF server has been one of the things hindering ColdFusion. Not that CF hasnt been expanding, especially lately! But it has never seen the great boom that languages like PHP and Ruby have. Only lately has the CF Opensource world really started taking off. There are more opensource initiatives now in ColdFusion than ever before thanks to the efforts of those involved with RiaForge and others.

But just imagine what a huge following CF would have it you could get into and deploy it completely free like Ruby. Its a much easier language to learn than PHP and Ruby with the familiar tag-based format.

Im anxious to see how it matures.
5 Sean Corfield // May 8, 2007 at 12:33 PM

I've managed to get as far as getting Smith running but only as a WAR on a freshly downloaded Tomcat install. And even there, the admin will not work properly - none of the settings changes actually "stick". I haven't tried anything more complex than "Hello World!" yet...
6 Neil Middleton // May 8, 2007 at 1:21 PM

Does anyone know what sort of support this has been getting from developers thus far?
Is anyone out there looking to contribute to the project?
7 Stewart Robinson // May 9, 2007 at 1:28 PM

I have offered help but haven't had a response. They'll never get rid of the red x's at that rate.
8 maurizio // Jul 2, 2007 at 9:34 AM

Hi to all.. I would spend some words related to coldfusion and to all this sincerely excessive enthusiasm that not justify from my point of view the advantages that it could bring to the enterprise users.

But we start from the beginning. About two years before I began to read on blogs, in forums and in the official macromedia website about coldfusion and the fantastic advantages that the guru of macromedia administered to the right and to the left.. I am remained really charmed.. I think a lot of entrepreneurs like me that themselves appear on internet should know before start invest precious resources why they should choose coldfusion.

1. the number of serious and compentent developers is very limited.
2. the costs of development for a respected application are prohibitive.
3. the costs of license and the costs of a dedicated server dedicated are superior to other scripting languages server side..
4. limited in functions..

therefore I do not understand why I must be enthusiast if another version of coldfusion will cost me more money.. And why I must be happy if I know that with other scripting language like php I can create the same application without spend one eye of head... I believe that Smith project is the sole truth interesting worthy news .. erred that the person attached to the skirt of Adobe do not condivide and snob those initiative that clearly will bring much advantages to the community.. but will not bring $$$ to Adobe..

Regards Maurizio

PS. Im not a PHP fan. Currently I use coldfusion for my business.

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