Recently we had a scare at work, and were told that we will lose our jobs very soon. Fortunately it was a false alarm but still we lived 24 hours without fear. The same week I had a younger person I knew ask me what I thought about web development and if I would suggest going to ColdFusion. These two incidents caused me to rethink the oft asked question of “if ColdFusion is dead” and how it applies to me personally. I have to say for me the answer may end up being yes.
In my area ColdFusion is not very well used, in fact, it's rarely used. Not many places other than our own unit within our state agency that uses it. There may be a few departments on the college campus that use it and I think one local development shop, maybe two. That's about it. Now elsewhere in the country, ColdFusion is quite alive and well. There are quite a few places that use it, but here when I had the fear that I was going to lose my job, I found that there is no ColdFusion work available at all.
So what I answered my younger friend, I found myself having to answer in a more ambiguous fashion than I normally would have. Namely I told him that it would depend on what you want to do with your life in general. So if you wanted to stay here in my area, Bryan-College Station, I would say no, do not get into ColdFusion, instead, learn another language like PHP or .Net. If however you are open to travel and you didn't mind relocating then I would say yes, consider giving ColdFusion a shot. Particularly if you want live on the East Coast up near Washington DC, Maryland, etc. which is a heavy ColdFusion area, or even if you're interested in living in Austin or Houston, which have higher ColdFusion bases.
There are still quite a few companies using ColdFusion, including some very big companies, so it's not as if there aren't jobs out there. But if you're like me and you are not willing to leave where you live because you happen to really love it here and you have a house and a wonderful sweetie and stuff. Then you don't have whole lot of choices.
So for me I have a strong suspicion that ColdFusion will be dying, and not be my primary language anymore. I've already made plans to start learning PHP 5 next year, it being the least this tasteful of the other languages available and one that I have some passing familiarity with. It also has high job marketability and my boss doesn't hate it. I still love ColdFusion, it is still my favorite language, and if I had my choice I keep doing it much longer, but I don't have a choice. And so I must be a good adult and do what is required to continue doing the main thing I love which is building web applications.
So is ColdFusion dead? For me, maybe it is. For other people, I hope not. I also hope there comes a time when Adobe gets ColdFusion out there enough that it comes back to my area and it's something I can return to. But for now my mortgage won't allow me to hold out hope, neither will my tummy or my car for my other life expenses.