I'm working on the latest revision of a client's CF intranet app that been in use for fifteen years, now.
A mess can be made in any language :) Be scared to see what today's modern frameworks and their code bases might look like in 10-15 years, because some projects will have that lifespan.
The only real mess is the project's continual struggle against the language's verbosity and limitations. I try not to think too often about how much shorter some section of code would be if it were in Flask or Django.
CF and Intranet. That is so 1999 :)
Although Cobol was super hot back then too for y2k patching.