ColdFusion is an application server and software language used for Internet application development. Such as ASP, JSP and PHP. The Scripting Language is called ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML).
The main advantage of ColdFusion is it's simplicity, wich has also has been it's main target for criticism. The CFML looks like HTML syntaxes, wich is a main advantage for newbies who just learnt HTML.But it main advantage comes with all it's features. Well, let's take a look at it's Release History to give you an idea of what i'm talking about.
1995 : Allaire Cold Fusion version 1.0
1996 : Allaire Cold Fusion version 1.5
1996 : Allaire Cold Fusion version 2.0
1997-Jun : Allaire Cold Fusion version 3.0
1998-Jan : Allaire Cold Fusion version 3.1
1998-Nov : Allaire ColdFusion version 4.0 (space eliminated between Cold and Fusion to make it ColdFusion)
1999-Nov : Allaire ColdFusion version 4.5
2001-Jun : Macromedia ColdFusion version 5.0
2002-May : Macromedia ColdFusion MX version 6.0 (build 6,0,0,48097), Updater 1 (build 6,0,0,52311), Updater 2 (build 6,0,0,55693), Updater 3 (build 6,0,0,58500)
2003-Oct : Macromedia ColdFusion MX version 6.1 (build 6,1,0,63958), Updater 1 (build 6,1,0,83762)
2005 : Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 (build 7,0,0,91690), 7.0.1 (build 7,0,1,116466), 7.0.2 (build 7,0,2,142559)
2007-Jul-30 : Adobe ColdFusion 8 (build 8,0,0,176276)
2008-Apr-04 : Adobe ColdFusion 8.0.1 (build ...