So only 4-5 weeks after I said I would wrap things up, it is finally time to announce the winners of the "Best of ColdFusion 9" contest. Before I do so, I have a few things I want to say.
First - I know that showing other people your code can be a nerve-wracking experience. It takes a bit of bravery to put your code out there for the world to see (and pick apart), and I, and my readers (if I may be so bold to speak for them), appreciate it. I love talking about code, and I think sharing code for review is one of the more fun ways to learn. So no matter what, I'm appreciative and I thank you all for your submissions. This year I had submissions from:
Dale Severin
Sam Farmer
Budd Wright
Russ Spivey
Dan Vega
Andrew Duval
Adam Tuttle
Simon Romanski
Marko Simic
Guust Nieuwenhuis
Ben Nadel (I don't know this guy, but something tells me he is an up and comer in the CF world...)
Corey Butler
Chris Martinez
Ben Riordan
Nathan Struz
We had 15 entries in total. There is no way in heck I would have been able to judge all of these. Luckily I had a great group of guest judges who helped out. Big thanks to
Brian Rinaldi
Paul Hasting (Paul, I promise my code will be globalized... one day)
Todd Sharp
Francisco Pualino
Daniel Short
Brian Kotek
Charlie Arehart
And finally, huge thanks to Adobe - specifically Adam Lehman and Allison Hueslid for supporting me and the contest with some killer prizes and Liz Frederick for creating the logo.
So I'm sure you're tired of all this blather and just want me to get to the winners. The judging process worked like this:
Every judge gave me a numeric ranking (from 1-10) on how well they thought the entry they reviewed best met the goals of showcasing ColdFusion 9. I looked over these reviews, and the ones I reviewed, and made a judgement call. This was, by necessity, somewhat arbitrary. I expect people to disagree with this decision. To me though the prizes are the least important part. Looking at all the entries and the stellar examples of ColdFusion 9, I think the job is done. But there has to be a winner... and that winner is...
Ben Riordan and MuralBuilder This entry blew me away for something I normally care little about - practicality. Folks know I like to write a lot of CFML, and not much of it is actually useful, so to see an entry that was both cool and useful - well - it just felt like the right choice to make.
As for the three runner ups, they are:
Marko Simic and CollybaSam Farmer and spreadEdit
Budd Wright and - my personal favorite - CFDungeon
All in all - I was pretty happy with all the entries (and thanks to Adobe, everyone is getting a little something something), so everyone please give yourself a big pat on the back.
Archived Comments
Congrats to Ben and Mural Builder - that was awesome, especially the video - just awesome :)
Thanks, I had a lot of fun with the contest and thanks Ray for running it.
And a huge congratulations to Ben for MuralBuilder. I thought a lot of the entries where really cool but that one blew me away. I also used muralbuilder.com this week for something very personal so I thank you hugely for that.
I am not surprised at the winner. When I first read about MuralBuilder, I was greatly impressed.
Oh - wow -
...[uncoordinated skip around for a few moments]...
Thanks so much to Charlie for reviewing my application, Ray for hosting the contest, and all the other judges for your involvement in this. I must thank Adobe as well for such generous prizes.
Everyone who has submitted an application to this contest - I have learned so much from taking a look at your submissions. They were fun to play around with too. Thank you.
I'm in the middle of a move right now, but once I get my environment all set back up I will be making changes to MuralBuilder / MuralBuilder.com with the suggestions many of you have had. I also have quite a few more ideas from working in the web industry but just now being able to develop them on my own :). This will be an interesting year.
The CF Community has been an unexpected but amazing addition to the choice to to learn ColdFusion. As I become more confident in my knowledge I will be sure to give to others the assistance and advice you have given to me. Thanks again to everyone. I know I've said that several times now, but really, thank you.
~ Ben
Thank you all. Biggest prize of all is what I learn working on this application. It is a privilege to be listed among winners.
Thanks to judges and thanks to everyone who bother reviewing my code. Of course, thank you Ray for organizing this.
/bow
Congrats to all. Special thanks to the winner and runner-ups for giving us a chance to learn something. And HUGE thanks to our "master" for organizing this. I hope to see more of these contests this year and find time to send some code.
Congrats to Ben and Mural Builder and to all participants.
It was certainly a great competition. =D
MuralBuilder was one of my favorites too. Congrats to Ben! As well as to Marko, Sam, and Budd!
Can't argue with these results, Ray -- MuralBuilder was pretty cool! Congratuations to Ben, Marko, Sam and the rest for all of the great entries.
I am honored to have received runner-up status with CFDungeon... ColdFusion 9 is awesome, and with a little passion for development, CF9 makes anything possible, even a text parser adventure game straight out of the '80s! ;)
CFDungeon is pretty cool. I had to load it up and go through it again after reading your comment. Congrats on winning too!
~ Ben