Coldfusion vs. Joomla

Hello, I have been using Joomla for about 3 months now and I love it! I have deployed it on three sites, none of which are very complex, but the support and extensions are amazing. I work for an environmental company that has created a rather complex database software to manage environmental legislation and provide help to companies that subscribe. We also create customized profiles for companies so that they can link their industrial activities to descriptive topics (water management, hazardous waste, ...) which in turn link to actual legislation. This has been programmed over the course of a couple years in Coldfusion. I do not like the way it is programmed (no modules, no flexibility, difficult to maintain, proprietary technology...). What is the feasibility of doing something complex in Joomla and are there some good comparisons between Coldfusion and PHP?? What about Ruby on Rails etc. We are talking about hundreds of documents, topics, sub-topics, various clients with various levels of access, customized sections. A major feature is updating and uploading documents (xml format) that are linked to others, these documents are then unpublished and the administrator is notified, then need to be screened by an administrator for changes. There is also two languages throughout the system. There is also document history tracking. The software works well now, but i feel I am limited by cfm - am i wrong? I am not a programmer, but I have a bit of experience and I generally understand the concepts (I am an engineer). What I would really be interested in is consulting with someone who has extensive large database management experience and who can tell me how crazy my ideas are. the web database i am referring to is found at [login to view URL] - you can look at the virtual tour to get an idea of its capabilities. My current Joomla sites are [login to view URL] and www.strikealight.org. Any guidance would be great. Thanks ## Deliverables 1) Complete and fully-functional working program(s) in executable form as well as complete source code of all work done. 2) Deliverables must be in ready-to-run condition, as follows? (depending on the nature? of the deliverables): a)? For web sites or? other server-side deliverables intended to only ever exist in one place in the Buyer's environment--Deliverables must be installed by the Seller in ready-to-run condition in the Buyer's environment. b) For all others including desktop software or software the buyer intends to distribute: A software? installation package that will install the software in ready-to-run condition on the platform(s) specified in this bid request. 3) All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S. Copyright law. Buyer will receive exclusive and complete copyrights to all work purchased. (No GPL, GNU, 3rd party components, etc. unless all copyright ramifications are explained AND AGREED TO by the buyer on the site per the coder's Seller Legal Agreement). ## Platform coldfusion