@haxtbh, I agree with many points of that blog post as well, but one of the key points here is that Dreamweaver is not an IDE, nor was it meant to be one. That being said, Dreamweaver excels at client-side development - or in more accurate terms, client-display development as well as overall web site management.
Please don't mistake my post as a criticism of ColdFusion Builder. I use CFB on a daily basis because it does a pretty good job as an IDE and I've completely fallen in love with the outline view when editing CFCs. However as @Dave Miller pointed out, the editor is still very buggy and has performance issues (see my other posts in this forum for examples). In my opinion, CF Builder wasn't meant to manage an entire web site (both behind the scenes and front-end stuff).
Dreamweaver has a ton of features that are valuable to anyone who manages an entire web site or for developers that have to collaborate with other developers and/or graphic designers. Since you asked which features exist in Dreamweaver which don't exist naively in CF Builder I'll pass along a few that come to mind:
1. Dreamweaver Templates:
Before you roll your eyes at me, hear me out. Dreamweaver templates while not perfect by any means are a great way to build a site and control site-wide elements when you're collaborating with other developers and/or graphic designers. Many schools still teach Dreamweaver as the "holy grail" of web design tools and being able to keep specific parts of a web site compartmentalized or locked-down is a really valuable feature. Many CF developers would argue that using a model framework or simply a series of <cfinclude> tags makes Dreamweaver templates obsolete. However I've never come across a CF only solution for making a site-wide design template where you didn't have to occasionally separate an opening tag and a closing tag in different CFM pages (which is bad design if you ask me and not intuitive). The key here is that the template feature makes collaboration and front-end design extremely user-friendly and straightforward.
2. File Management and FTP synchronization:
This is a big one. Dreamweaver has a built in FTP connectivity tool which allows you to easily synchronize your web site, folders, or single files to your remote server. This is probably the most valuable tool that I use within Dreamweaver. I've tried in the past to use various plugins for Eclipse (and CFBuilder) as well as FTP clients to do the same thing but Dreamweaver really nails it - especially with secure FTP server support. Additionally you can quickly compare remote files with your local copy (using an external program of your choice) to quickly view the differences. Eclipse has a few plugins available which promise this type of functionality but I have yet to encounter one that does it very well.
3. Folder/File Cloaking
The ability to cloak folders and files from automatic synchronization is a valuable tool for both individual developers and when collaborating with others on your projects.
4. Design View:
Take a deep breath... I know "design view" is hated by most developers and for the most part I agree. However, while I never do any actual layout or development using design view, the view itself serves a similar purpose as the outline view in CFBuilder except that it's a visual representation of your web site. Have you ever been working on a really REALLY long web form and you need to quickly jump around to various form elements? The design view (when in split mode) is an efficient tool for jumping around your code using a visual reference. There's no right or wrong way to jump around your code... and some would argue they could do a simple "find..." search to find the elements they are looking for. In my personal experience, when you're working with forms the design view makes it really easy to find the element you're looking for extremely fast.
5. Code Hinting, Code Coloring, and Syntax Highlighting
This was mentioned in the blog post but it's worth pointing out again that Dreamweaver really nailed it on the head when it comes to proper code hinting, code coloring, and syntax highlighting. I have yet to use another program (or IDE) that does as good of a job.
6. Right Click Context Menu Method Jumping
When editing JavaScript files you can right click anywhere in the code to quickly get a list of methods (functions) on the page and quickly jump between them. This has been a really valuable tool for me when editing script files. This type of feature would be really beneficial in other IDEs (including CF Builder) but I haven't seen it implemented anywhere else before. I've suggested this feature to both the CF Builder team and Dreamweaver but I haven't seen this feature implemented for CFML.
7. File Check/In Check/Out
While I only use this on a few sites I can't tell you how many times it's helped me when working with a less-experienced web designer on a project (I think we have all been there at some point). Being forced to "check/in or check/out" files with someone else using Dreamweaver is a good way to collaborate and lock-down your updates to prevent them from getting accidentally overwritten. This method of version control is way less robust than something like utilizing GitHub or another repository/version control system, but the advantage is that it makes it easy to work with less experienced designers in order to protect your work. It works out of the box without having to train someone how to use a more robust system. I think the key point here is that it's a very simple feature but I still find it to be valuable in some instances.
TLDR Version:
CF Builder is a pretty good IDE - but it's not a replacement for Dreamweaver. If you're managing a complete web site your life will be a lot simpler if you're using both CFBuilder and Dreamweaver so you can take advantage of both program's strengths. The fact that CFML support is being removed by Dreamweaver is a real shame and a short-sighted decision on the part of Adobe. I strongly believe that keeping CFML support included in Dreamweaver will benefit existing developers and also introduce the beauty of ColdFusion to a whole new generation of web designers and developers.
Please support ColdFusion and let the Dreamweaver developers know you want CFML support reinstated in Dreamweaver! Submit a feature request here: Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form and Make sure to mention your vote for Request #3609524.
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There are some issues here and there, but generally CFB is a good product. I think its a bit harder to use for people used to dreamweaver, this can sometimes feel like it doesn't work or things are not worth moving for as its too difficult to setup. Those who have used pretty much anything else, especially Eclipse, find tons of benefits with CFB.
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