October 5 2009 12:01 AM by Adam
filed under ColdFusion | ColdFusion Builder

By now I'm sure you've read that ColdFusion 9 was officially released at Adobe MAX. It's been a long journey and I almost can't believe we finally reached the end. I'm sure there will be plenty of blog posts circulating on how to leverage all the functionality of ColdFusion. This is not one of those posts. Instead, this is a post to say thanks.

While I may currently hold the rank of ColdFusion Product Manager, it's important to remember the talented people who laid the groundwork. Most of what ColdFusion 9 is, is due in large part to the vision of Jason Delmore, the former Product Manager. When many people blasted the notion of ORM in ColdFusion and some of the other advanced features, Jason pushed forward. He was determined to build a product that didn't just cater to our novice community, but helped that segment of the community grow. It comes as no surprise to see he is still pursuing that goal with the For ColdFusion Foundation. Thank you, Jason.

Then there is Tim Buntel. For the last year or so Tim has been working as the Flash Builder Product Manager. His effect on Flex and Flash Builder has been immense, but it would be foolish to think he still wasn't a big part of ColdFusion. When I took over this role, an overwhelming task as I returned from 4 months of disability, Tim was steady hand that kept ColdFusion on track. So much of what became ColdFusion 9 was determined in a "war room" in Newton, MA with myself, Hemant, Ram and Tim. Tim provided the leadership and guidance we needed to make the tough decisions. I'm fairly certain we would not have been able to deliver ColdFusion 9 (on time) while developing a new product (ColdFusion Builder) without Tim "The Machete" Buntel going through our workload and making it 'manageable'. Of course, this doesn't even count the 10 years he's spent working on ColdFusion. Thank you, Tim.

The real heroes of ColdFusion are the engineers, support team, technical writers, account managers, marketing and everyone else on the ColdFusion team. It feels weird to thank them for ColdFusion 9 like it's a finite thing. In reality the ColdFusion product team is always at work to make the product better and to serve the community. When I joined Adobe I used to think it would be such an immense honor to work on ColdFusion itself, but I've come to learn that the honor is in working with the ColdFusion team. Some people are hard workers. Some people are just incredibly smart. The ColdFusion team is both and it really shows.

There quite a few people who aren't even on the Adobe payroll that put their heart into ColdFusion. Software development is a living breathing process. Adobe can come up with ideas and make them into a reality, but they don't become 'perfect' without the input from the community. There are a select few who devote endless hours to the perfection of a feature (even at the expense of flame wars) and report the critical bugs which raise the overall quality of ColdFusion. I don't mean to embarrass anyone, but I want to publicly thank the following people. Without them, ColdFusion 9 would surely suck. We are in their debt.

• Aaron Neff
• Adam Haskell
• Barry Beattie
• Ben Davies
• Chris J Dawes
• David McGuigan
• Devin Holloway
• Elliott Sprehn
• Jared Rypka-Hauer
• João Fernandes
• Ray Camden
• Sam Farmer
• Todd Sharp
• Tom Chiverton
• Adam Cameron

Finally, I'd like to thank my wife. No, not for being supportive or anything plain like that, but for actually contributing to ColdFusion! Whenever we need a quick design, Rachel is always there to help out. Her contributions go way beyond the occasional t-shirt design. What most people may not realize is that she also designed the installer screens for ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder. Which, if you ask me, are the best looking installer screens of all time!