An Architect's View

20 responses so far ↓

• 1 Jean Moniatte // Mar 21, 2010 at 10:19 PM

  $299 a steal? You are kidding, right? I do not care about Flash Builder 4, and should pay $299 for what? An IDE?
  
  Adobe needs to get real. CF Builder should be free.

• 2 tof // Mar 22, 2010 at 1:22 AM

  Dear Adobe,
  
  I don't need Flash builder. Can I get cf builder for the 50 bucks difference?
  
  Kind regards,
  
  A good percentage of the CF community ;-)

• 3 Kevin Benore // Mar 22, 2010 at 12:28 PM

  It is a steal, unless you don't need/use Flash Builder 4 ... then its a bit high.

• 4 Dave Knapik // Mar 22, 2010 at 2:38 PM

  Am I the only one that thinks even $199 is rather steep for an IDE? I've read the feature list and, yeah, it does quite a bit, but I've been fine using CFEclipse for the past several years and that's free. Hell, I'm even fine more stripped down than that: Textmate with the CF bundle.
  
  Sure Textmate costs money, too, but there's a wide gulf between its $55 price tag and CF Builder's hefty $199. Plus, I can use Textmate for any number of other languages I use to develop applications.
  
  At a time when many ColdFusion developers are concerned with Adobe's efforts to increase adoption of the language, I think charging $199 for an IDE (in the middle of a recession) is not only somewhat foolish but downright cheeky as well.
  
  If they had to charge, $50 should have been the ceiling on that. I even think Textmate costs too much, but at least that's Macromates' main product. Adobe already makes money off selling ColdFusion server licenses, so additionally charging for this feels like a proper shakedown.

• 5 Sean Corfield // Mar 22, 2010 at 4:39 PM

  Wow, I'm stunned at the complaints here! Everyone seemed very happy to pay $499 for ColdFusion Studio and no one seems to complain about $399 for Dreamweaver. Perhaps people forget how much IDEs cost for other technologies? Zend Studio for PHP = $399 per year. MS Visual Studio 2010 = $549 (on preorder - expected to cost $799 at release).

• 6 Jean Moniatte // Mar 22, 2010 at 4:58 PM

  Textmate: $55 one time
  e-texteditor: $35 one time
  
  Yeah, $299 for an Eclipse plugin is high. Specially for those of us who do not work for large corporations or government agencies.
  
  Adobe already charges for the server licences (unlike most other technologies), the IDE should be free.

• 7 Sam Mawby // Mar 23, 2010 at 5:06 AM

  Hi Sean,
  
  You're right to look at the competition as this will ultimately determine the value for money of Adobe's product. However I'd have to say you're incorrect in the area of discussing like for like. Most development languages are free to use (in fact I'm struggling to name one other than Adobe's Coldfusion that isn't, although I'm sure there are a few). Some charge for support services and these costs may be quite high but that's not the same argument. Quite a lot of languages also have free IDEs or IDE plugins (ColdFusion has CFEclipse etc.). You then have to distinguish between IDE's and plugins. The former obviously requires a lot more development than the latter, and as such tend to cost a lot more. Adobe also has a problem in that Visual Studio is a far superior product (in the most part). MS Visual Studio Upgrade Editions are available to everyone (at least for 2008) and I'm sure you can get VS 2008 Standard and for that matter VS 2008 Professional cheaply at the moment. Unfortuately Microsoft has removed the Standard Edition from the 2010 range so the start-in costs are higher. However the free Express Editions are also available.

• 8 Ryan Cogswell // Mar 23, 2010 at 8:52 AM

  It shouldn't matter whether you work for a large corporation or a small one or if you are an independent contractor. In the end what matters is whether or not the IDE improves your productivity compared to free alternatives.
  At a fairly conservative estimate, $299 is about 10 hours of developer pay. So, if ColdFusion Builder saves you more than 10 hours of development time in a year (about 12 minutes a week), then it's worth the price. If you don't think it will accomplish that, then continue using free alternatives. Even if the IDE was free or significantly cheaper, I wouldn't bother switching IDEs if I didn't think the new IDE would give me at least that much of a productivity boost.
  
  

• 9 Dave Knapik // Mar 23, 2010 at 10:11 AM

  I've never paid $499 for ColdFusion Studio. Back in the day, I used Dreamweaver at the time I could have been using CF Studio, but I was also not that advanced of a programmer yet. Once I started using CFEclipse, it became all I needed and I never looked back.
  
  As long as I have a text editor with snippets and tag completion, I'd rather save the money. Tack on a frameworks plugin, version control support and unit test running and I'm more than satisfied. I have all that for free now with Eclipse, CFEclipse, Subclipse, etc. Is CFBuilder going to raise my productivity by such a high degree that $199 is worth it? Doubtful.
  
  If the server license were free, I wouldn't complain. Charging for both, however, is not only completely insane, but also an insult to developers.

• 10 Filip // Mar 24, 2010 at 2:59 AM

  I think you got it wrong Sean, Flash Builder 4 Premium Edition has the CF Builder bundled and it costs 699$, so the pricing makes sense from the numbers pov. As for the fact that one should pay for an IDE... that's just wrong in so many ways.

• 11 Adam Cameron // Mar 24, 2010 at 3:30 PM

  Sean, IMO all those other applications you list are a lot better at what they set out to do than CFB is though. Even CFS.
  
  I think $300 for CFB is a lot more expensive a prospect than $800 for Visual Studio. Also... Eclipse is the IDE... CFB is just an Eclipse plug-in.
  
  --
  Adam
  

• 12 Ke Chong // Mar 24, 2010 at 4:42 PM

  I reckon it should come with the CF server license as well to offset the cost...
  CF Standard - 1 CF Builder license included
  CF Enterprise - 3 CF Builder license included
  
  Adobe should still sell it standalone but the price should be lower... and packaging with Flash Builder 4 should still exist for those who want both...
  
  For a technology where gaining market share should be a priority, cost of entry should be kept as low as possible...
  
  Kudos for making it free for educational licenses though...

• 13 Sean Corfield // Mar 24, 2010 at 5:08 PM

  @Filip, ColdFusion Builder is $299 AND INCLUDES Flash Builder 4 Standard.
  
  @Ke, bundling with the server would help corporations buying production server licenses but would not help the vast majority of CFers - and certainly wouldn't help any of the CF contractors who most write code for clients (who have server licenses or use hosted servers with licenses included).
  
  @all, I keep seeing "just an Eclipse plugin" but I believe most CFers will install ColdFusion Builder as a standalone product and use it as such. They may later install some Eclipse plugins into it but they are not, first and foremost, Eclipse users today. And there are plenty of commercial Eclipse plugins out there, many costing a lot more than ColdFusion Builder.

• 14 dp // Mar 24, 2010 at 10:49 PM

  @Sean,
  ColdFusion Builder as a standlone product is nothing but Eclipse + plug-in as a integrated package.
  Adobe does not have to maintain two different versions of code base for ColdFusion builder. It is just a convenience to the people not having Eclipse installed to start with.
  

• 15 Ke Chong // Mar 24, 2010 at 11:21 PM

  throwing in CF Builder licenses with the server license will help SMEs, must not forget the SMEs!
  
  Besides I still think it was unwise to not have a standalone/cheaper entry point... I do not think it is overly expensive over here in Australia, it works out to be approx AUD$380 (excl 10% GST) at the current price, still fairly affordable. However if you were say in Asia or Eastern Europe, its a fair chunk relative to the standard of living.
  
  And as pointed out previously by others, Adobe already charges more than other competing technologies for server licenses, and even though I feel if you do have a use for the extra bits it is very worthwhile, however cost is a big consideration for SMEs and startups.

• 16 Filip // Mar 25, 2010 at 6:50 AM

  @Sean, Sorry about my previous comment, I misunderstood your initial approach.
  
  As for the "just an Eclipse plugin" pro and cons, I don't quite follow. Coldfusion Builder is an Eclipse plugin, it doesn't run without the Eclipse IDE framework, does it? And if you were to you use it as the only plugin in your Eclipse IDE, or as part of many others you will install, or have previously installed already, it is still a plugin. Like the saying goes, "a rose by any other name..."
  
  There is a strong point to all you've said though. But there is a clear distinction between "perception" and "fact". One may perceive each plugin as the IDE itself, but the fact remains that a plugin is not, in this particular case anyway, an IDE by itself.
  
  Anyway, Eclipse was a good choice (probably the best) for a supporting IDE, the extensions for the plugin idea is great (community involvement), also like to drop a "better late than never" so, all-in-all, buy it or don't, either way, it's out there and it's going to help a lot.

• 17 Sean Corfield // Mar 25, 2010 at 1:56 PM

  @Filip and @dp, I think the vast majority of CFers who will buy ColdFusion Builder will install it as standalone. They won't be existing Eclipse users and they won't even care it's based on Eclipse. It's a CFML IDE for them, plain and simple.
  
  Over time, they may come to appreciate the power of Eclipse but they will think in terms of "installing Eclipse plugins into ColdFusion Builder".
  
  That's why I think it does Adobe and the ColdFusion team a disservice to focus on the "plugin" aspect...

• 18 Filip // Mar 26, 2010 at 1:32 AM

  @Sean, agreed :)

• 19 dp // Apr 2, 2010 at 5:56 PM

  @Sean,
  Well, my point here was not about how CFers will use ColdFusion builder but about ColdFusion builder is an Eclipse plug-in and was developed using Eclipse plug-in development tools using Eclipse.
  The stand-alone ColdFusion builder is just a different packaging adobe has made for those not having Eclipse installed and/or configured.
  
  Being an eclipse plug-in, ColdFusion Builder will use most of the underlying Eclipse services and other installed plug-ins such as version control, managing views and perspective and lot more..
  
  The advantage to ColdFusion Builder is that many services/ functionalities are just available and will work seamlessly without much efforts.
  
  For the end user, it does not matter but the point here was, ColdFusion builder is developed as an Eclipse plug-in and uses Eclipse architecture. Without Eclipse, it would take Adobe few more years to release this product with a lot bigger development team. Hence, the price for an eclipse plug-in seems on higher side.
  

• 20 ziggy // Apr 11, 2010 at 10:20 PM

  Either way, CFBuilder/Eclipse is an ungodly size and resource pig and CFBuilder, like CF, is too expensive.
  
  I liked the lightness and usefulness of e text editor (textmate for windows) but it's not ready yet. If only Adobe built something like that.

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