Ben Forta

**Benjamin M. Forta** (born 1967) was the senior technical evangelist of the Macromedia ColdFusion product line and the primary technical spokesperson for Macromedia's server products. He is presently Adobe's Senior Director of Education Initiatives. His primary responsibility there is focused on students, both K-12 and higher-ed, with an eye towards digital and visual literacy, and the role that Adobe services and tools play in the future of communication and storytelling.

## Personal life

Forta was born in London, England before moving to New York and California. He presently lives in Oak Park, Michigan with his wife Marcy and their children.

## Career

Forta helped found the website Car.com, which was developed entirely in ColdFusion and later purchased by Auto-By-Tel. He joined Allaire Corporation in February 1998 and became their first product evangelist for ColdFusion prior to the company's IPO.

### Macromedia and Adobe

Following the acquisition of Allaire by Macromedia in March 2001, Forta became the senior technical evangelist. With the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe Systems, he became the director of developer relations.

Forta is the author of over 40 technical books (with over 750,000 copies in print) on SQL (including the best-selling SQL book of all time), Regular Expressions, ColdFusion, Windows development, JSP, and more. Many of his books have been translated into over fifteen languages worldwide.

## Bibliography

* "Macromedia Coldfusion 5 Language: The Definitive CFML Language Reference Reference", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-7897-2698-X.

* "Reality ColdFusion: Flash MX Integration", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-12515-0.

* "Macromedia ColdFusion MX Development with Dreamweaver MX: Visual QuickPro Guide", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-15802-4.

* "Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes", Sams Publishing. ISBN: 0-672-32566-7.

* "Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes", Sams. ISBN: 0-672-32567-5.

* "Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Application Development", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-29269-3.

* "Certified Macromedia ColdFusion MX Developer Study Guide", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-33011-0.

* "MySQL Crash Course", Sams. ISBN: 0-672-32712-0.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-51548-X.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 2: Application Development", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-51546-3.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 3: Advanced Application Development", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-51547-1.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-66034-X.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 2: Application Development", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-67919-9.

* "MariaDB Crash Course", Addison Wesley. ISBN: 0-321-79994-1.

### Coauthored works

* "The ColdFusion 4.0 Web Application Construction Kit", Que Publishing. ISBN: 0-7897-1809-X.

* "Advanced Cold Fusion 4 Application Development", Que. ISBN: 0-7897-1810-3.

* "Sams Teach Yourself ColdFusion Express in 24 Hours", Sams. ISBN: 0-672-31662-5.

* "Windows 2000 Developer's Guide", John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 0-7645-4653-8.

* "WAP Development with WML and WMLScript", Sams. ISBN: 0-672-31946-2.

* "Certified Macromedia ColdFusion 5 Developer Study Guide", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-7897-2696-3.

* "ColdFusion 5 Web Application Construction Kit", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-7897-2584-3.

* "Advanced Macromedia ColdFusion 5 Application Development", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-7897-2585-1.

* "Reality Macromedia ColdFusion MX: Macromedia Flash MX Integration", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-321-12515-0.

* "Macromedia ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-12516-9.

* "Advanced Macromedia ColdFusion MX Application Development", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-12710-2.

* "Reality ColdFusion: Intranets and Content Management", Pearson Education. ISBN: 0-321-12414-6.

* "Certified Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 Developer Study Guide", Pearson Education, March 1, 2002. ISBN: 0-7897-2736-6.

* "Reality ColdFusion: J2EE Integration", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-12948-2.

* "Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 Web Application Construction Kit", Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-22367-5.

* "Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 3: Advanced Application Development", Adobe Press. ISBN: 0-321-67920-2.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 About Me by Ben Forta. 2019.

## External links

* Ben Forta official website
* Ben Forta at LinkedIn
* Ben Forta official Twitter
* Ben Forta at the Adobe Wiki
* Ben Forta at Wikipedia