Evidence of an Eclipse based CF IDE from Adobe?

Posted At : September 26, 2008 10:21 AM
Related Categories: ColdFusion,Eclipse,Adobe

So I was perusing the list of new features in Dreamweaver CS4, and I don't see ANY improvements for ColdFusion coding. There are a couple of new features that will be nice for CF developers, but they aren't directly related to CF (unless I missed something).

Personally I use CFEclipse. But I have been telling my co-workers and friends that I am convinced that Adobe is going to release an Eclipsed based ColdFusion IDE with CF 9 for four reasons:

  1. Ever since Macromedia stopped developing CF Studio/Homesite, there have been a LOT of people in the community that have been calling for a "real" CF IDE (like Visual Studio for ASP.Net, or Komodo IDE for PHP).
  2. Adobe already has Eclipse based ColdFusion tools like built-in CF documentation and the CF debugger.
  3. Adobe has been talking about "Improved developer experience" as one of the focuses for CF 9.
  4. Flex is Eclipse based.

So I'm wondering if the continued lack of CF love in Dreamweaver is more proof that Dreamweaver is NOT intended to be the future path for CF development tools from Adobe. Of course, Adobe will always support Dreamweaver/CF as long as CF developers use it, but I suspect it will be like Homesite+. They won't add any new CF features, but they'll continue to release language updates for Dreamweaver along with new versions of ColdFusion.

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Hmm. I like where you're going (I was having a similar discussion with a coworker earlier this week) but I can't see how you get there from those 4 points. I'm a long time CF developer (about ten years now) and a pretty new Flex developer. I used CFEclipse long before Flex Builder reared its pretty little head. But for my money, FB makes CFEclipse's interaction look and feel primitive. I think they should simply add on to Flex Builder and make it work for CFML as well as it does for ActionScript and MXML. I don't see a need for another IDE alongside Flex Builder and Dreamweaver.
# Posted By Howard Fore | 9/26/08 12:49 PM
Well, you may be right, Howard, but I don't think Adobe would go that direction. Why not? Money. Look at all the the products in their product line that are separate. Why not have a "Graphics Editor" that combines Photoshop, Freehand, and Fireworks? Because they make more money from selling all those separate products. Plus, remember that a lot of people use Flex for PHP or Java, so they won't care about having CF integration in their IDE.
# Posted By Jake Munson | 9/26/08 3:51 PM
We are in a very sad situation. We have a an easy and fast language (cfml), but we don't have an IDE. ColdFusion is the only web language that lacks of a real IDE. Today actualy is easier to programma in c# and asp.net than in cfml.
I'm guessing how much money an eclipse java programmer costs to improve cfeclipse or to develop a new brand CF Eclipse plugin.
I'm not looking for something too advanced, I would be satisfied with a little of intellisense.
$90.000 are enough?
I can't belive that Adobe doesn't have $90.000 to pay someone to improve cfeclipse. Adobe doesn't want to pay? Ok, I will find 300 people who are willing to pay $300 to have a decent coldfusion IDE. It's better than change the language.
# Posted By Mark | 9/27/08 1:25 AM
Jake,
I've been saying the same thing for some time now. When Adobe released the CF Extensions for Eclipse, that convinced me I was right.

We shall see.
# Posted By Kevin Slane | 9/29/08 9:08 AM
i think that Adobe will better its new features in Dreamweaver CS4, perhaps it will be in the future. We can't actually compare between the both companies. I haven't tried the CS of Adobe, i hope that i won't be disappointed.
# Posted By Flug Los Angeles | 10/20/08 6:39 AM
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