Programming ColdFusion

Acknowledgments

While it is impossible to individually acknowledge everyone who had a hand in getting this book from an idea to the printed work you now hold in your hand, I would like to recognize and thank a few of these special people.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank my wife Persephone for putting up with my lack of participation in the day-to-day responsibilities of homeownership and maintaining a relationship. On more nights than I can remember, she remained pleasant and understanding while I stayed sequestered in my office until the wee hours of the morning. She also gets credit for giving me the idea for the first paragraph in the book’s introduction. For some reason, I found the most difficult part of writing the book was coming up with the introduction after the rest of the book was finished.

Thanks also to my parents, Bob Bilson and Dianne Bilson. If it weren’t for that Commodore Vic20, I wouldn’t be where I am today. While I’m at it, this is also a good time to thank all of my friends and family who are probably tired of hearing “working on the book” in reply to the question “what are you doing tonight?”

I am forever indebted to Dr. Helen Munro for inspiring me when I was younger and showing me that applying creativity to problem solving can be as effective an approach as any scientific method. Good teachers rarely get the credit they deserve.

Three of my technical reviewers, Selene Bainum, Artur Bakhtriger, and Michael Dinowitz also deserve thanks for their hard work in ensuring the book was readable and accurate. I’d like to give special thanks to two additional technical reviewers, Elias Jo and Amy Wong. Their sharp eye for detail and ability to read and comment on virtually every section of the book was responsible for catching more errors and omissions than I care to admit. The feedback they provided, both from a development and a technical support perspective, was invaluable.

Thanks to J. J. and Jeremy Allaire and the rest of the team at Allaire for the hard work and vision that went into ColdFusion. I’d also like to thank Bushan Byragani, Tim Buntel, Chris Kintzing, Damon Cooper, Zane Kuchera, and Tom Harwood for helping me understand some of ColdFusion’s finer technical points. Thanks especially to Jeremy Allaire for getting me excited about ColdFusion and the world of opportunity it has made possible for web development. Thanks also to the Allaire developer community for some of the great ideas and great people it has produced. Allaire can honestly claim one of the most tightly knit and supportive developer communities around.

I would like to thank everyone at Amkor Technology for providing me with the challenges that necessitated learning every facet of ColdFusion. I’d especially like to thank Scott Varga for some of his comments on early drafts of many of the chapters as well as readability and usability testing he provided while simultaneously learning ColdFusion.

My editors at O’Reilly, Paula Ferguson and Laura Lewin, also deserve recognition. Without their editorial skill and ability to help me focus in on the important aspects of the book, you wouldn’t be reading this. Finally, I’d like to thank the production staff at O’Reilly for their hard work in getting the book to print.