User:Rfmedia

Overview
The primary distinguishing feature of ColdFusion is its associated scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), which compares to JSP, ASP.NET, or PHP and resembles HTML in syntax. "ColdFusion" is often used synonymously with "CFML", but it should be noted that there are additional CFML application servers besides ColdFusion, and that ColdFusion supports programming languages other than CFML, such as server-side Actionscript and embedded scripts that can be written in a JavaScript-like language, known as CFScript.

Originally a product of Allaire, and released in July 1995, ColdFusion was originally developed by brothers JJ and Jeremy Allaire. In 2001 Allaire was acquired by Macromedia, which was in turn acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.

ColdFusion is most often used for data-driven web sites or intranets, but can also be used to generate remote services such as SOAP web services or Flash remoting. It is especially well-suited as the server-side technology to the client-side Flex.

ColdFusion can also handle asynchronous events such as SMS and instant messaging via its gateway interface, available in ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition.

Main Features
ColdFusion provides a number of additional features out of the box. Among them:
 * Conversion from HTML to PDF and FlashPaper
 * Client-side code generation, especially for form widgets and validation
 * Platform-independent database querying via ODBC or JDBC
 * Data retrieval from common enterprise systems such as Active Directory, LDAP, POP, HTTP, FTP, Microsoft Exchange Server
 * Client and server cache management
 * Session, client, and application management
 * File indexing and searching service based on Verity K2
 * XML parsing, querying, and validation
 * Server clustering
 * GUI administration
 * Task scheduling

Other implementations of CFML offer similar or enhanced functionality, such as running in a .NET environment or image manipulation.