I must admit that, even though I’m working for Adobe and have worked with Flex for a long time, Cold Fusion was still a bit off my limit. Now, with the new beta releases of CF9 server and CF9 Builder, I have taken the opportunity to get into it and here is my conclusion plain and straight: Cold Fusion is amazing and every Flash developer should learn and use it.
Why? First off, it makes your life sooooooo much easier. Things that would take you ages in PHP or Java take you minutes, few minutes, to get them done in CF. This is how a query looks like in CF:
<cfquery datasource="cfartgallery" name="myquery">
SELECT * FROM APP.ARTISTS WHERE LASTNAME = 'Kim'
</cfquery>
For anyone who has been querying with PHP, this is heaven. And come to think of it, you don’t even have to do this out of Cold Fusion. With CF9, every Flex/Flash developer (as any PHP, Java or .net) can invoke CF as a web service. Take a look at this:
<mx:Application xmlns:cf="coldfusion.service.mxml.*">
<cf:Mail id="cfMail"
to="bill.gates@microsoft.com"
from="steve@mac.com"
subject="Have you heard about CF9"
content="It rocks!"
type="html" />
cfMail.execute();
via Forta.com
And remember: CF9 Builder comes as a standalone installation or as part of your Eclipse, which means it also integrates into Flash Builder. Come to speak of Microsoft: CF9 has a really nice integration with Sharepoint and the major office products, like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. You can dynamically generate PPTs and XLSs, and convert DOCs and PPTs to PDFs. You can read more about the new features on Serge’s blog here. By you should be all hot to try out a bit of CF. I promise it will make your life so much easier, allow you to be more productive and be a better Flash developer. Here are two docs that will be your new bible. See them as the old and new testament 
For a quick start, don’t miss out on the videos over at Adobe TV (tv.adobe.com). I’ve made a quick selection of the three videos that will best get you started.
