Well, I'd argue that PHP and Python were roughly equally easy, although they didn't "blend" into the HTML as well (which is good or bad, depending on your viewpoint). ASP was supposed to be just as easy, but I remember some of those code bases being pretty woolly.

Nowadays, I think we actually have it easier. I haven't used many of the other front-end frameworks, but you can design/generate a back-end in a few minutes using Open API Spec, add a persistence layer in a few more minutes, and wire it up to a Vue front-end very quickly. And the kicker is that it's modular and maintainable, which a lot of CF/PHP/ASP projects certainly were not.

no, it's not even close. you'd have to learn a whole javscript framework, read the open api spec, grok backend vs frontend, and really understand the modern web before you could even get started, not to mention the fomo induced by the hundreds of other options you'd have to discard in the process. for the average human, that's a non-starter.

with tag-based coldfusion, it felt like you were learning an extension to html, rather than an entirely different (programming) language. while php/asp were somewhat easy to learn, coldfusion was extra-super-duper-easy (i taught classes back in the day). people with no prior experience could create a dynamic web page in an hour or two and feel that sense of accomplishment that drove them deeper into it.

It's Java, so it has as much power and expressiveness as Java.

https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/cfml-reference/coldfusion...