I am a developer for a university and we currently use ColdFusion for all our web applications. Recently my supervisor has been asking me if I know php which I do and I am afraid that he is thinking of ditching ColdFusion in favor of PHP because "it's free" as he keeps hinting. I happen to know that the university is not in financial trouble and can easily continue to afford supporting ColdFusion. I feel that dropping it in favor of PHP would be a tremendous step backwards. ColdFusion is quick and convenient for small projects yet unbelievebly extendable since it can work with any Java package. It is also much better than PHP when it comes to maintaing neat, clean presentation separate from programming code. I need to make sure that I remove any serious intention of making this switch from my supervisor's mind and I'm looking for any point of argument to help me. Does anyone have good ideas for how I can convince him? I really appreciate it.

To be honest I have only used ColdFusion for a brief period before my ISP at the time decided going for the free PHP option was a better choice. Personally I didn't see a lot of difference between the 2 programs in what they can do. Sure the commands are a little different but basically it seemed to me that they have similar functionality. Then of course I probably only scratched the suface of ColdFusion's capabilities with just doing basic database stuff.

Perhaps going to PHP won't be such a bad thing, (besides all the coding you will have to do), PHP seems to have a lot more resources out there when you need help with a problem. Maybe if you did deeper into what PHP can do you might find it will do what you want anyway.

I know that won't help you convince your supervisor, but that's my thoughts anyway.

Its best to use PHP.

Reasons

Easy Learning if u know C++
OO Programing
Lot of Support
Lot of Code
Good Future
Easy integration with other database
Easily available
Easy configuration
Easy to Install
Easy to write
And
Widespread

Personally, I just plain perfer php. It's seem to grown to me and it's easy to learn, imho at least. It seems to be all over, anyway.

Have a nice day.

umm,at first chose the active page language,contrasting severals,like ASP/php/coldfusion/jsp/... i think that asp and php is also easy to master and extend to others.with development of web technology and need,php(jsp is rather powerful but not widespread) is becoming the main stream at least when i used.i just realize coldfusion a little,hope to get some useful experience from here.

I havent used coldfusion yet but i always use php so php is my choice...

I am currently learning Php..so far i can say that it is really easy to learn and i am adopting it really nicely......i havent tried cold fusion b4 but from what i read php out-performs it in certain areas

I would stick wit PHP just for the fact that it is supported by nearly all hosts for no extra cost. Youmay like ColdFusion when somebody else is paying for it, but you would be better off getting more familiar with PHP

PHP > Coldfusion

I'm learning PHP I already know C++ and PHP seams
like A joke but it does what I need it to.