Once more, I will be attending ColdFusion Summit.  Again I will state to anyone who is on the fence; just go.  It’s a great time.  You learn a lot.  There’s excellent presentations by talented contributors to the community.  There’s hands on with the people who create ColdFusion.  And you get previews of ways ColdFusion can make completing your job quicker, more efficient, and more professional.

Last year, I wrote an article titled What CF Summit Needs is a CF101 Pre-conference Workshop and at the time, I genuinely believed that.  I think Adobe has done something even better.  It appears, (although it may be too early to tell) that Adobe has gotten rid of having multiple options for pre-conference workshops in favour of an Adobe ColdFusion Specialist Certificate Program.  I think this is a brilliant idea.  From the conference website:

The Adobe ColdFusion Specialist is a full-day certificate classroom program, delivered by top Adobe ColdFusion experts. You will be enrolled into the course as soon as you register and will receive course instructions and prep materials two weeks prior to the on-site program date. Following the training you will complete an online assessment – upon successful completion, you will receive your Adobe ColdFusion Specialist certificate.

…which really is appealing to anyone who is a ColdFusion developer regardless of whether they’re new to the language or not.

Personally, I love to learn, and I love to improve my skills.  Stronger skills means I’m more qualified to perform my responsibilities as a developer, which means more opportunities for income, which means I can finally replace my Ikea coffee table with something a little more befitting of a developer.

For me, I believe that any training, even rudimentary training, can be beneficial.  As developers I find we tend to find ways of doing things and stick to those ways.  Sometimes it’s good to go back to absolute fundamentals to see different and more powerful ways to get things done.  I use Sublime Text as my code editor.  I’ve never seen the need to use ColdFusion Builder when what I generally look for is a code editor instead of a full-blown IDE.  This training will force me to dive into CF Builder and be instructed on how to use it properly; something I’ve never been successful in doing on my own.

So… I’m headed back, and very excited to walk away with an official certification from Adobe that backs up my professional knowledge as a seasoned ColdFusion Developer.

If you see me in October, hit me up!  I love networking with other CF Devs!