On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Terry Troxel <te...@it-werks.com> wrote: > My question is how much of a learning curve should I expect and are there > tags out there for the Linux version as well as the windows?
CFML itself will be the same on all platforms (modulo some stuff around the 'obviously' Windows-specific features like cfregistry, .NET / Exchange integration but even there the *programming* part will be the same). If you mean third-party CFX tags, yes, you'll be limited to Java-based tags rather than C++ tags but for any given C++ CFX tag, there is usually at least one reasonable Java CFX alternative. The big things you'll need to get used to: * Case Sensitivity. Linux cares. Windows does not. If you're a 'clean' programmer whose code always matches their filenames, you'll be fine :) * The file separator is / and - yes folks! - / works on Windows too so you could all use / and pretty much forget you ever saw \ and we'd all be happier :) In terms of environment, you'll need to get familiar with the Unix shell / command line. Pretty much everything is done via the shell and configuration is all about editing text files. The big plus is that you can easily move configurations from one server to another and/or automate builds and deployments much more easily (because tools like Ant can easily modify the text configuration files to create customized deployments). You'll also need to become familiar with Apache instead of IIS. Most people know my opinion on that choice ;) If your primary Windows day-to-day machine is reasonably powerful, you might consider running CentOS in a VM locally as a way to get familiar with it while maintaining the 'safety' of Windows for most of your interactions. My primary machine is a Mac but I run WinXP and CentOS in VMs. As for a choice of Linux, I generally prefer CentOS since it's closer to the 'de facto' commercial standard of Red Hat but I know a lot of people really like Ubuntu. It's definitely personal preference. I've tried Ubuntu a few times but I just can't get on with it for a number of very minor, personal reasons. You may feel the same about CentOS. Try them both (VMs are wonderful for that)! I've used every main version of Windows since 3.1 and I've never found it much fun - but I was raised on *nix and find command lines and text files far preferable to GUIs so I'm a bit biased by experience. I started with Mac OS in the early System 6 days and ran a BSD Unix on that alongside System 6 thru System 7.5.2, then jumped to OS X which has "Unix Inside", so to speak. Along the way I've worked on about 20 different Unix variants I guess from over half a dozen main vendors so my comments should be taken in that context: 30 years of day-in, day-out *nix experience vs about 20 years of intermittent Windows usage (and I've never put a Windows server into production - voluntarily!). -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/ An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:333935 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
