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:

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.