ColdFusion Builder lacking bug fix updates

[ascott67]

I have to say that since the product was officially launced, we had one small update that provided a few fixes.

The question I need to ask is what about these more serious bugs that are stopping this product from being great?

There are about 30+ bugs listed on the bug tracker that have been there for over 18 months that are still major problems today, some of these I consider major and should be pushed to getting fixed as quickly as possible.

The number one pet hate of mine is wasting time with an Application that doesn't work correctly, so how does this affect ColdFusion Builder?

Lets look at setting up of servers on ColdFusion Builder, this has got to be the number one most used and needed feature of this product and yet it doesn't work and has so many reported bugs that I would have thought that these would be fixed by now.

If one is lucky, you can setup a server and start and stop this from within Builder. However I can tell you that even when you have it setup, it will stop working as well.

Lets look at what I have setup at the moment.

I have had ColdFusion 9 and 9.01 installed and still donot mange to be able to start and stop the server.

I now have a mutli server version of ColdFusion 9.01 locally, and was able to get this to work briefly. And now it no longer works, with no changes to any of the settings. Don't get me started on remote servers, these are even worser trying to get working.

And even if you do make changes to the server setup in builder, you have to close and restart the Application. This is not acceptable to me either.

I could go on about how much of a hit and miss this feature actually is.

So the question is if this a feature that people would want to buy this product, why is there no fixes for the problems that are still there after 18 months?

[DJ Smith]

I too am disappointed that we have not had any updates, besides Update 1 in mid-May, to fix anything. Come on guys, this is mid-August. At least release something that fixes a few bugs so we don't feel like we're still working with an early beta.

Doug

[DJ Smith]

Now it's November and unless I've missed something there are still absolutely no updates or bug fixes for CFB since May. Not even a minor update is available.  Does this mean Adobe has given up on this version of CFB and is only working on CFB 2, thus leaving us in the cold with software that has lots of problems? Just because this was a Ver 1 product doesn't mean you put it out and abandon it.

I guess I foolishly thought Adobe would treat CFB as a real product and support it. I should have known better.

A frustrated and angry user who had to pay for this product,

Doug

[ascott67]

I have to agree, both ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder have so many bugs that need to be fixed and they aren't being fixed.

In ColdFusion Builder the debugger is a box of shit, it works when it wants to and not when you need it too. It crashes and/or hangs for about 5 mins if you leave it long enough it will eventually come back to you.

The problem is the way Adobe do business, they release the product and provide a fix to some of the problems and then that is it. If you need something urgently then you have to pay Adobe to fix their own bugs.

So I guess with a Business Model like that then it is Adobe's best interest to leave as many bugs in the product as possible, why because it might generate more revenue for them.

Version 2 had better be a free update, for the pain and suffering of all the bugs that remain that are not fixed. I have been complaining for 8 years for the debugger problems back in the days when it was just an extension/plugin for eclipse. They were not interested then and they show that they are not interested now.

I think someone needs to draw up what we as users want / need fixed, if they aren't then we either get it for free or we move on. Present the numbers back to Adobe and see what they do about it.

[DJ Smith]

I guess the Jedi Master is speechless ;o)

[cfjedimaster]

Nah, sometimes this system 'eats' my replies. Hopefully this one will

go through.

I have to agree, both ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder have so many bugs that need to be fixed and they aren't being fixed.

Actually for CF there have been multiple hot fixes, updates, even a

cumulative hot fix.

In ColdFusion Builder the debugger is a box of ****, it works when it wants to and not when you need it too. It crashes and/or hangs for about 5 mins if you leave it long enough it will eventually come back to you.

Did you report these issues?

The problem is the way Adobe do business, they release the product and provide a fix to some of the problems and then that is it. If you need something urgently then you have to pay Adobe to fix their own bugs.

No - you only pay if the issue isn't your own fault. You don't pay to

report bugs in the products.

So I guess with a Business Model like that then it is Adobe's best interest to leave as many bugs in the product as possible, why because it might generate more revenue for them.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[ascott67]

Yes they where, they were reported in ColdFusion 7 beta program, ColdFusion beta program and ColdFusion 9 beta program.

When it is reported that many times, and nothing is done what sort of confidence do you think this gives us users of the product?

During the ColdFusion 9 beta program, the cfgrid had many problems that had been reported in CF8 beta program and was again reported and we had been told it was fixed. Did it get released with the initial 9.0 version? No it didn't, did it get released with the 9.01 beta program? No it didn't.

Again what sort of confidence does this give people in this product?

I even fought hi and low with Adobe to get these grid problems fixed, not only did they break more things but it was not even backward compatible. Evey person I spoke to refused to fix it, becuase I did not have paid support. This even went as far as Adam, and Kevin Lynch because I got feed up with the fact that 9.0 got released and it broke our application to the point when we fixed one thing it broke another, to the point that we could not get at the source of ColdFusion to fix the problem.

Each and every time we were told there was a work around, and no work around was ever produced.

When 9.01 was released was it fixed? No it wasn't, in fact it was even worse. And the answer again from Adobe was that unless we have paid support it will not get fixed.

So Ray the answer is very simple, Adobe is not interested in providing more patches / hot fixes past the intial ones they have always released. Even it it effects people from moving upto the latest version...

I can provide many examples of emails from employees of Adobe, that say the same thing no paid support no fix. Now we have to wait another 2 years and wait to see if these problems get fixed, and to me I am sorry that is not an issue that one should have to endure. When talking to people about ColdFusion the same problems exist each and every time, the lack of support and problems that never get fixed puts people off from keeping on buying the product and they end up moving on.

I have been in two companies that began their days as ColdFusion developers, and both companies ended up moving on because of these problems I have outlined. I can understand a company like Adobe needing to make money, but at the end of the day they will continue to loose money because people will look at other options that are better supported, have more outfixes and updates.

The amount of updates that Microsoft release in 1 year is maybe like the same amount Adobe/Macromedia/Allaire have released in 15 years.

Do't take this the wrong way, but the debugger is buggy as hell. It works when it wants to and even to the point when you do get it working it actually gets slower and slower each time you run it. This has been a problem for now 6 years in this product and it has never gotten any attention, now that CF builder utilises this feature, I would have hoped that these bugs and problems got fixed. But they never did.

Every major release is about throwing new features into the product, but when it comes to issues like this do any of the previous versions that have these problems get fixed? No they don't, and even the current major release is not fixing any of these previous issues either.

The problem is one needs to draw the line, and stop putting features into a product that Adobe can't continue to support.

And till that changes people are going to continue to get rather annoyed with Adobe, and the more they get annoyed the more customers Adobe end up loosing. I don;t make my comments very lightly when I do make them, and after 15 years I have seen it all with ColdFusion and the one thing that never changes is the lack of bugs in older features that ever get fixed.

Sorry for the rant, but this is something that Adobe HAVE to address and address sooner than later. I know of 3 more companies that are moving away from ColdFusion, for more reasons than what I have outlined here.

[cfjedimaster]

I guess my experience is just different then yours (well, that isn't a

surprise I guess). You seem to imply that CF is buggy to the point of

being useless. Every major software product has bugs. Companies

typically allocate resources to bug fixing in terms of how important

the bug is. I'm not denying CF has bugs - but obviously plenty of

people are successfully deploying CF apps every day. Should Adobe

strive for 0 bugs? Sure. Will they get it? As soon as MS, Apple, etc

hit 0 bugs - ie never.

[DJ Smith]

Well, since I was the one who bumped this thread, here's my 2 cents.

We know that Adobe is fixing bugs in the IDE. As of today 4840 are listed and 3815 are supposedly closed. That's great! Unfortunately, the bug tracker doesn't allow sorting by date so I cannot tell how many were fixed prior to the May update. In any case,  I haven't seen any of these bug fixes since the May update.

I've been a CF programmer since V2 and have been happy with it, warts and all.  I've also been a longtime user of Dreamweaver, and, of course, Homesite/Studio. Since starting with Dreamweaver, I've always heard complaints about the lack of updates along the same lines as this thread. You get a new version, you get ONE update that fixes a major bug or two and some minor bugs, you wait 1.5 years, you get another version. Then the bug comlaints start for the new version, you get ONE update with some bug fixes, wait 1.5 years and get a new version.

There is a pattern here and Adobe does have a history.

At most of the software companies I've worked for the last 30 years, updates to products were pushed out the door at regular intervals to fix major and minor bugs. Bug fixes were never held for 6+ months or until a new version was released. But that's the feeling I get with Adobe and CFB.

If I would only get 10% of the updates I get for some of the other Adobe products, I'd be happy. It seems like I get updates to Air, Reader or Media Player weekly. In fact I see there is an update for Adobe Air from 2.0.4.13090 to 2.5.0.16600 waiting for me right now.

Even CFEclipse is getting regular updates and great support.

Wish that it were CFB :<(

[Adam Cameron.]

It seems like I get updates to Air, Reader or Media Player weekly. In fact I see there is an update for Adobe Air from 2.0.4.13090 to 2.5.0.16600 waiting for me right now.

Wish that it were CFB :<(

I suspect the patches for AIR, Reader and Flash Player (which is what I presume you mean, as opposed to Media Player?) are:

a) somewhat more important because those products (well: except AIR, obviously) are pretty ubiquitous;

b) security holes, which could compromise a lot of computers around the world.

CFB simply isn't that important or risk-prone compared to these other products because it has no-where near the ubiquity.

So I think it's reasonable those get more attention than CFB.

I will say that I never considered using CFB beyond the trial period as v1.0 was just too flaky to use "in production", and it would have been good for them to address some of this flakiness between the release of the patch they did and now when 2.0 comes out.  But CFEclipse is fine, so I don't really care that much.  CFB is better than CFE, but not £200 better.  £50 better, maybe.  Maybe even £100.  Not £200.

--
Adam

[ascott67]

@Ray, no you haven't understood what I am saying in anyway shape or form.

The problem is not that the product is not usable, but the updates and fixes

are not constant enough to keep us happy. I have one email that tells me

that the alignment in the cfgrid was fixed prior to the initial 9.0 release,

and 7 months after 9.01 has been released this bug still exists.

Are you seeing that pattern now Ray?

Adobe need to begin to address the current and past bugs in a better manner

than a single update, we as a company release bug fixes and psuh these out

on a weekly basis. We have released around 1000 bug fixes in around 30

pushes in 6 months.

That's right we have pushed 30 patches, of fixes an enhancements and we are

no where near as big as Adobe.

[cfjedimaster]

But look at the example you gave - alignment of text in cfgrid. It's

not like that is going to be something that prevents sales or blocks

your site from being used. And it is something you can work around

by using another grid. I know that isn't always the answer of course -

but it goes back to my point of some bugs being bigger than other

bugs.

But - I can understand why your bugs are more important - I feel the

same way about the stuff I report.

[ascott67]

No in that example it was me saying that Adobe had marked it as being fixed,

and it was never released as such.

There are other issues in the cfgrid that actually broke backward

comparability, that regardless of whether I reported it or not, if it

affects backwards comparability it should be high on the list of things to

be fixed.

[Adam Cameron.]

I think Andrew has a point.

There's no point in flagging these bugs as "fixed" unless the patch is actually available.  And there should be no reason why Adobe can't drip these fixes out as they make them.  It does not have to be a monolithic release every two years.  Indeed they already do this with CF hotfixes in some situations, so I don't see why they don't release more hotfixes as they actually do the work to fix the issue.  Sure there's overhead in creating a hotfix, but I think they need to suck this up on the basis that "well they've inconvenienced their clients, so how about they inconvenience themselves a bit to put their clients right".  And if they hadn't buggered it up in the first place, they'd not be needing to inconvenience themselves, either 😉

On the other hand if the bugtracker wasn't so amateurish, and rather than just saying "closed" there was some indication of WHY an issue was closed, and if it's fixed, when we can expect to SEE the fix, that'd be a start.

However they should be doing more frequent releases of fixes, yes.

Same applies for CFB (which is, after all, which forum we are posting to here 😉

--
Adam

[ascott67]

Thanks Adam I am glad someone has understood what I am trying to say, I can also give another example with the updater to CF Builder as well. Where I had been chatting with one of the engineers, in sorting out a bug that stopped the line debugger from working in certain conditions.

Well before the update to CF 9.01 and CFB I got an email to say that they were able to finally duplicate this bug, and since then they have never released it with the CF 9.01 or CF Builder updater 1 either, nor has it been addressed since.

I can give many more examples problems, and I am sorry but there has to be more releases.

Has anyone actually tried to setup a multi-server with 2 or more version of ColdFusion and setup different debug ports with different configs? You might eventually get this to work, but eventually it will just stop for no reason what so ever. The line debugger is one of the best features in the development process, and the amount of problems it has is really annoying, not to mention can be a productivity killer at times when you waste time trying to find out why it is not working when it once was.

How about going and trying to stop a server, only to find it start right back up again and not notify you in the CF Builder that this has happened. And then the next day without changing anything it all starts working again, only to stop again a few more days later.

Why should these serious productivity types of bugs be ignored for a 2 year cycle?

It was told to me today by an Adobe employee that ColdFusion Builder was pushed out the door when it was, because it was late enough as it was from their release schedule. Now as much as I understand the reason for this decision by Adobe, the problem I have with this is that there has been no real substantial follow up with these problems in Builder. Instead we get forced to fork out more money for the next release hoping that we will be persuaded by the new features to forget that there are still bugs that annoy us. Sooner or later that attitude starts to annoy people enough to stop forking out their money in the products, no matter how good the product maybe.

I am not sure how this can or will ever be changed, but it certainly needs to be addressed and the sooner the better.

Regards,

Andrew Scott

http://www.andyscott.id.au/

[Adam Cameron.]

It was told to me today by an Adobe employee that ColdFusion Builder was pushed out the door when it was, because it was late enough as it was from their release schedule. Now as much as I understand the reason for this decision by Adobe, the problem I have with this is that there has been no real substantial follow up with these problems in Builder.

We've all pushed out software before we thought it was ready because of being over deadline.  It's not ideal, but it happens.

But in every other situation I've experienced, if the release was "beta quality" but it was more important to get something out there (fair enough), then development keeps going after release, and the patches come thick and fast until the product finally gets to release-quality.  It seems Adobe have released something that was clearly unfinished, and then changed their position to "well obviously it's release quality... it's been released!".

Oh well.

--

Adam

[DJ Smith]

Good discussion guys. Now if we can only convince Adobe to release some big fixes ... any bug fixes.

Here I am looking at the Help dropdown, and there it is ... "Adobe Coldfusion Builder Updates". Eclipse makes it easy to update software and CFB has the button to do it. I guess maybe the "Updates" action is a broken feature too?

I would even be happy if we got fixes for little things that I use every day, such as code assist, code coloring, etc. These are basic editor features that have been in other editors, including eclipse, for years and years. Can Adobe not even release a small update that just includes fixes and not new features?