[badrequest]

> "Whilst y'all dimwits call us unpopular, we're busy running the world - from health and banking to government and Telco companies. Adobe's Evangelism Kit points out that Coldfusion is utilized by over 70% of the Fortune 100."

this is unprofessional and doesn't help drive your point. You're arguing that "dimwits" perceive popularity as a good measurement of the value of a language, and then you point to the language's owner's own bluster about how popular it is in the industry.

I'd like to present an honest inquiry: who's life is made better by this article? The "dimwits"? Coldfusion devs? My guess is neither.

[smacktoward]

The stronger argument is a few lines down:

> The kit also points out that 70% of Adobe Coldfusion customers are still building new apps with CF - meaning that they still consider the platform viable for future expansion.

If you believe that number (and I'm skeptical, but let's grant it for the purposes of discussion), that indicates that CF is still a going concern in most places that use it, rather than something cordoned off in a dark corner as "maintenance mode." And people generally don't start new projects on platforms they believe are going to go away soon.

Note, however, the shifting goalposts: we hear that 70% of Fortune 100 companies use CF, and then that 70% of "ColdFusion customers" are starting new projects in CF, but that doesn't mean 70% of Fortune 100 companies that use CF are starting new projects with it. We have no idea how many of those big enterprises that use CF still consider it viable. But by placing the two numbers in sequence like that, the Evangelism Kit plants the suggestion in your mind that lots of them do.

[CydeWeys]

I'd be curious to know which users at these companies are creating the new Coldfusion apps. As a parallel, plenty of real business work gets done with Excel spreadsheets by people all across a business organization, but that doesn't mean that a new product actually being done by the engineering org within a company is going to use Excel for a new software product (they won't). It matters who these Coldfusion users are. Are they outside of engineering?

[woah]

Not saying he's wrong, but this guy just basically rewrote the Adobe sales pitch with extra salt

[bdcravens]

A lot of companies build CF apps internally but you’d never see

[newshorts]

Agreed. The article’s purpose seems To be a statement about how the author doesn’t really care what people think about his language choices. Yet he put time and energy into writing an article about this, contradicting how much he says he cares.

[amyjess]

While the use of the term "dimwits" is definitely unprofessional, there is considerable value in knowing a language that's used by a small but critical segment.

Case in point, the banking world's use of COBOL. Very few organizations use COBOL anymore, but those who do are using it in some absolutely critical pieces of infrastructure that can't easily be replaced. The combination of low popularity and critical usage means that people who know COBOL are in high demand and can command fantastic salaries due to rarity.