ColdFusion People
This page is for ME more than anyone else. The ColdFusion community is exploding with new people and a massive amount of blog activity and that, combined with the fact that I'm just not that bright, is making it very hard for me to keep people straight in my mind (even those I Interact with on a regular basis). So here, I am just giving a quick little biographies that I can look at when I need a "refresher." It helps to engage both the left and right sides of my brain.
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Charlie Arehart »
Charlie Arehart is a veteran of the ColdFusion world. I've thought Charlie was awesome ever since he helped me to make a tremendous breakthrough in my understanding of how CFHttpParam works; the rest of you probably know Charlie because he has a tremendous knack for organizing the world of ColdFusion information in well organized, accessible ways. Of particular note is his CFUG TV listings which archives most of the recorded ColdFusion user group presentations and his list of CFML Resources which boasts over 700 tools in more than 100 categories.
A lot of people may not realize that Charlie's available as a consultant too to help solve CF problems, whether local or remote, even for as little as 15 minutes.
Clark Valberg »
Chief Software Engineer at Epicenter Technology Consulting
http://www.clarkvalberg.com
Clark is an awesome and very funny guy with a particularly good mind for business. I first met him at the New York ColdFusion User Group where he gave a presentation on Interface Driven Development. It was a very inspiring presentation, in the tradition of Hal Helms and the FLiP methodology, and it totally sold me on the idea of robust prototypes in the early stages of the application development life cycle.
Over time, Clark has become not just a fellow ColdFusion enthusiast, but also somewhat of a de facto life coach. Because I know nothing about business and he seems to know a great deal (not just about business, but about how to treat other people properly), I am always turning to him for advice. Certainly he has helped me through some rocky times and my interactions with him are constantly shaping the way I feel about business and about my own self-worth.
He also created DevelopCircuit.com which is helping ColdFusion developers find new jobs every day.
See also: http://www.epicenterconsulting.com
Javier Julio »
Javier is just a great guy who loves ColdFusion and web development. He has to be one of the most enthusiastic people that I have ever met. I like to think that I love web development, but Javier might just put me to shame. If you ever get the chance to sit down and talk with this guy, you'll see that he just oozes passion and a love of technology; it's truly and inspiring experience that makes you want to run our and learn more stuff.
As well as enjoying programming, he also happens to be very good at it. His code is very clean and well thought out and everyone that has seen Javier's work says that he is one of the best CSS and Standards guys that they have ever met. I look forward to continually mooching off of his crazy smarts.
Peter Bell »
Owner of Systems Forge
http://www.pbell.com
Peter Bell is a brilliant guy. I like to tease him and give him a hard time about the fact that he's going to put me out of a job one day, but the fact is, I do this because deep down inside, I would LOVE to actually see the world the way he sees it and teasing is the way I cope. To be honest, I can really only wrap my head around a fraction of the topics that he covers on his application generation blog and as such, I was never exactly sure what was rolling around inside that head of his; but, I recently had the privilege to look at some of the code that he has written and HOLY COW! Peter's code is just unbelievable - it makes me look like I'm playing around with children's building blocks. I think perhaps I should start rating my own functional level in "Peter Bell Equivalents" (PBEs); like, for instance, today I feel like I'm operating at about .175 PBEs :)
Joking aside though, Peter is also a very well rounded technology guy and seems to just devour reading material in a way that makes me very jealous. Luckily, Peter lives in New York and I occassionally get to sit down and talk technology with him.
See also: http://www.systemsforge.com
Ray Camden »
I am sure that everyone knows Ray Camden. He heads up numerous open source projects including BlogCFC and the open source site RIAForge.org. I wish I could contribute as much as this guy does!
Rey Bango »
Rey is a super jQuery enthusiast and is one of the people responsible for showing me the light in terms of what jQuery could do for web development. Rey is also an industry veteran, with over 19 years of experience in information technology. He brings a unique perspective to RIA development having built true desktop applications for 8 years prior to moving into web programming and being keenly aware of the challenges involved in building desktop-like web applications. Rey is also member of the jQuery JavaScript library's Core Project Team.
He's developed a wealth of knowledge stemming from his work with such technologies as client/server, OOP, PowerBuilder, Sybase, ASP, ColdFusion, DHTML, & Ajax. His blog can be found at reybango.com.
Steve Levithan »
http://blog.stevenlevithan.com
This guy has INSANE regular expression skills. He's like a regular expression Ninja. Everytime I post something regex related on my site, Steve likes to drop by and tell me how it can be improved. He is also very good at explaining how the regular expressions are evaluated and why one way would be better than another. As good as I feel that I get with them, Steve inspires me and reminds how much more I can learn.
Plus, the dude likes Ninjas, and how can you not like a guy who likes Ninjas?
More to come!
