FuseboxMX has been reborn as Mach-II. I am having a hard time following what is going on here. What is the difference between Mach-ii and Fusebox4? It looks like they are the same thing. Talk about a branding nightmare. Having used Fusebox3 to build my latest app, I really like the changes to Fusebox4/FuseboxMX/Mach-II (other than the naming). Sean Corfield has an excellent explanation of "why mach-ii" and the implications of the implicit invocation framework (I love the concept of the Listener, it reminds me of the shift in the Event Model that AWT and Java went through moving between JDK 1.0.x and JDK1.1.x).
Hal also has a great commentary on the future of ColdFusion.
"The answer, I believe, is simple: prepare now for that point—whenever it may be—that you need to know a new language. Macromedia has made a big deal of the fact that CFMX is built on Java. Go to macromedia.com/desdev and you’ll see articles about object-oriented programming, object modeling and design patterns. CFMX represents a fundamental shift in Macromedia’s vision for ColdFusion and it’s a vision that’s tightly tied up with Java. Macromedia has also been careful to tell ColdFusion programmers that they will not have to learn Java. Yet it is undeniable that Java is the 800-lb. gorilla of programming. Ignoring it is something we do at our peril, it seems to me." Hal Helms – Is ColdFusion Dying?
While ColdFusion is a great product, you are tied to the product vision and execution of Macromedia. The product roadmap and future of ColdFusion is unclear. While technologies like PHP and Java are open to community review and involvment in their evolution. I am starting to think that while the overhead of learning and using tools like Struts or Tapestry is hirer, the long-term product sustainability is probably great.