This gave me a laugh
Saw this on a google search, it made me laugh, so I thought I would share. Names have been blurred to protect the stupid.
Coldfusion ESRI Users Speak Up
Ok folks...its time. If you are a Coldfusion and ESRI user, now is your chance to tell the developers at ESRI. They recently sent out a developer survey looking for input on what languages and technologies you are using. It can be found here.
It drives me *crazy* that just about every site that ESRI has is built with CF, but the developer resources devoted to it is pretty poor as compared to .net
Where Is Coldfusion ArcGIS Server Support?
With Coldfusion 8 out the door in in the hands of developers, I guess its time to ask the big question. Where is support for ArcGIS Server and Coldfusion? Obviously there was great support for ArcIMS and Coldfusion. ArcWebservices too. What about ArcGIS Server? With Flex & flash for the frontend and Coldfusion doing the heavy lifting, I see Coldfusion as an obvious choice. The vast majority of ESRI's many sites are Coldfusion based. There are a lot of Coldfusion 'haters' out there. Most if it comes from people that have never even tried it. I actually think these developers are threatened by just how easy it is to perform complex tasks with Coldfusion. Not so special are you? Maybe you arent so L33T after all huh? Bah, thats a post for another day...
I don't see it being that difficult of a task on ESRI's part. Coldfusion now has the ability to use any .NET object — (local and remote) and of course like any Java object (its had this since version 6 - for those of you that don't know, Coldfusion is a J2EE application). Creating some CFC's to interface with the java classes would be the obvious way to go, at least I would think.
I really see this lack of support to be a larger issue with ESRI lately. They seem to have taken the .net only stance. It certainly saves them time since you can go desktop or web (but dont forget about Adobe AIR coldfusion folks). I think that the java support was pretty much an afterthought, only there to satisfy some large clients. I think thats pretty obvious from the lack of documentation and examples. So that leaves out a huge amount of web developers - mainly the Coldfusion and PHP folks. And these are the folks that have made some of the slickest ArcIMS sites out there today.
If ESRI wants to continue their dominance in the web mapping arena, they had better taken a hard look at this strategy. If I were working at ESRI, I would want to get these ArcGIS Server toolkits into the hands of as many developers as I could. Leaving out Coldfusion and PHP (and others)creates a gapping hole in the web development community. If they dont, you'll continue to see the ESRI 'user showcase' sites dominated by ArcIMS (notice how they are made with server technology, er I mean ArcIMS). How long do you think before Google releases a (Free) client side server component that lets you use your data inside Google maps? Its only a matter of time...and by then, will be too late
ESRI User Conference In Full Swing
Well, I suppose by now the conference is in full swing. Unfortunatley, I couldn't make it this year. But, after working on a grueling Routemap IMS Coldfusion project (yes, you did read that correct), I have decided to take a few days off and have a couple of my college buddies who I haven't seen in a while come down to visit.
I trust all you guys will let me know how the conference is going. I am especially interested to hear how the Coldfusion Arcims Users Group meeting went.
ArcIMS 9.1 Issues - Follow up
As many of you have read in the posting previous to this one, I have been doing a lot more direct connections to ArcSDE from ArcIMS. We'll I've been having a bit of trouble with a few things, but no big deal....However I did discover a few new things about ArcIMS 9.1.
I read about a new parameter for connection to ArcSDE on the ArcIMS whats new page:
"For Image and Feature services that use ArcSDE data, a new feature parameter defines the time interval between attempts to reconnect to ArcSDE when the SDE server becomes unavailable."
wOOt! Sounds great to me, so I go looking for it. Looks like its located in the %arcims install dir%\server\etc\aimssdeio.cfg. Open up that file and look at the new parameter connectioncheckinterval="300". First thing that came to mind for me was this is could be why it was taking my mapservices so freaking long to refresh (see this post for more info). I don't know that for sure, but I'm guessing that it is, so I immediately lowered that number to 20. I'll let you know what happens.
The next thing I noticed was a new log file getting created in that same etc directory called sdedc_SQL Server.log. Of course I check it out, because I am all about log files. Its a great start to just have a log file specifically for direct connections, but this didn't really contain a whole lot of useful information.
IDBInitialize::Initialize Failed CAN'T OPEN INSTANCE: sde:sqlserver. Spatial Engine Connection Failed (-9).
Yeah, I already know that. Thanks for nuttin. But, I applaud ESRI for recognizing the need for that log file, and I hope that with future releases, we'll get some more info. By the way, I left encrypted="true" in my sdeworkspace - and thats what threw the error above.
In Defense Of ArcIMS
Every so often, I'll do a search on Google to see what other folks are doing with ArcIMS and other ESRI stuff. Its always good to be up on the latest technology. So, I Googled "ArcIMS" just recently, and I see an ADWORD ad over on the right and it says "ArcIMS too Expensive ?". Sure, it's pricey for some folks. Okay, they got me, I'm intrigued. As a developer, I need to keep on top of all the latest stuff. So I click the link to http://www.gatewayhorizons.com/ArcIMS.htm, and I'm brought to this page which proceeds to absolutely trash ArcIMS. Basically they say it's too expensive and slow.
Here is a quote from their page:
"What is ESRI afraid of ? We believe that it is sticker shock! Well, we are going to shock you, the price is $ 10,000 per processor for private companies."
That’s obviously completely false. That gives you the impression that if you have a dual processor box(which most of us have) that you'll be shelling out 20k to use ArcIMS, when that is just completely false. ESRI list price is around 10k but if you purchase through an ESRI reseller it's significantly less. And that’s a 2 CPU license. So, we are looking more along the lines of 9k for a 2 CPU license.
Next thing that bothered me...and, again this is a quote from them:
"We are not sure but we know that it is SLOW. But don't take our word for it. Just visit the ESRI web site and click on the customer ArcIMS sites."
You know what? There are a bunch of sites out there that are listed in that directory. 600+ that ESRI has listed. Some of them are bound to be slow. Some of them are bound to be not maintained properly. Some of them are probably on a Pentium II NT Box (yeah, they are still out there). Some of them are just not programmed right (that's why I have a job, mind you). How many sites did they have in their public registry? Zero. They didn't have one. They had some lame demo that did nothing.
But, still, I'm all about checking stuff out. If there is some inexpensive way to help my customers get their data out there, I'm all over it. So I dig a little deeper, and check out their 'developer section'...I'll paraphrase for you. Basically, its .NET only, and the online developer documentation is a bunch of dead links. So, you are stuck with IIs and Windows. ArcIMS can be deployed on a ton of platforms and customized with even more languages (Coldfusion, JSP, .Net, etc). You aren't just tied to windows and .net.
Now, I can agree, it can be pricey for some folks. In ESRI's defense, I think they have done a good job making their software (now especially server based and developer software) more affordable for developers with the advent of the ESRI Developer subscription and for smaller local governments, they offer reduced license fees.
I am not averse to letting ESRI know when I think they get something wrong (ahem see my ArcIMS 9.1 post)...so if you are really strapped for cash, check out the all the ESRI grants outs their (I know plenty of folks that get their software free through grants) or even some of the fine open source projects like mapserver. Just don't fall victim to this type of false, misleading advertising. There. I'm done.
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