My first job out of college for working for a sweat shop under the mask of a web content shop. The boss man was such an idiot - he contracted a job out for a client that wanted their database front-end implemented as a Cold Fusion application - and he didn't even have a single programmer who knew Cold Fusion.

Enter me. Cold fusion strengths:

• I learned it in a couple of days
• I finished the project in a couple of weeks

That being said, most people who didn't know any better would be all gung-ho over Cold Fusion. It is really easy to do basic stuff - data base front end, file uploading, and basic authentication/authorization.

But when it comes to flexibility and power - Cold Fusion will paint you in a corner. It does make Java applets on the fly though (/me ducks behind wall of invocation).

Sure Cold Fusion is easy - but everybody should know by now that nothing comes easy - there is always a price to pay. How long will it really last? What last feeping creaturitist will be the straw that breaks the camel's back? (err, no pun intended on that one)

That was a little over a year ago. Since then I have been learning Perl, PerlDBI, Apache, and mod_perl - and I don't plan on going back. I'd say that I have read about 25 times the amount of material on these subjects that I have read on Cold Fusion. Some would consider that a weakness on Perl, but not me - no pain, no gain.

Moral of the story - I find Cold Fusion to be a good baby step towards the enlightment that is secure and robust web programming. Nothing more, at least not with the arsenal that Perl has to offer.

Jeff