Hal Helms, Rest In Peace

[BKBK]

Hal Helms, one of ColdFusion's great gurus since the very beginning of the language, passed away two days ago. This sad news was shared by fellow ColdFusion guru, John Quarto-vonTivadar, on https://cfml.slack.com/ 

I remember Hal Helms. I became familiar with the name within weeks of starting to learn ColdFusion more than twenty years ago. 

As a good parent conveys something enduring that sustains the child for life, so does  a good teacher convey something enduring that sustains the learner for a lifetime. Hal Helms was one such teacher. My gratitude to him is immense.

Condolences to John Quarto-vonTivadar and to Hal Helms' family.

[BKBK]

Ben Nadel with Hal Helms at CFUNITED 2008, Washington, D.C.
(Photograph courtesy of Ben Nadel, https://www.bennadel.com/people/23-hal-helms.htm)

[Charlie Arehart]

Very sad news, indeed. Thanks for sharing it, BKBK. (I was traveling to the CFSummit the day you posted it, and it was then a crazy week.)

And well-put, on how Hal's legacy as a teacher will endure. Another is as an author: I was privileged to co-author the ColdFusion MX Bible with him and Adam and David Churvis. That was a long year of work in 2002, but he made it enjoyable, and I remember like it was yesterday when he, Adam, and I met in the atrium of the Wardman Park hotel in DC, site of the first Allaire CF DevCon, to consider creating an entry for CF into that "Bible" series.

And of course most CF folks from those early days got a LOT of their training and education from Hal. I only ever heard positive feedback from people who took classes with him, and I can't help but think that my own style of teaching and writing was influenced by his work. We've been blessed to have a wonderful community of writers and presenters over the nearly 30-year history of CF. Hal was certainly a major force much of the first half, whose impact would be felt even more widely than just those who had direct interaction with him. He will certainly be missed.

[Dave Watts]

Wow, that's a shock to me. My condolences to his family as well.

[David Fekke]

I knew Hal through the ColdFusion community. When I ran the Tampa ColdFusion user group, Hal came and spoke. He was a fabulous speaker. I also saw him speak at multiple different conferences.

The two most important things I learned from Hal was how to use the Fusebox web framework and Object Oriented programming. Hal wrote a book on how to use CFMX's new features to write object oriented software. A lot of the principles I learned from Hal on OOP I also used in my career with .NET, Objective-C, Swift and Java. 

My condolences to his family.