Right now my good friend Corey Haines has a Pledgie campaign going to help him continue his pair programming tour.
Some people may question why they should donate to something like this. After all, their are tons of tales in the software industry about people making it big in short amounts of time. Further, I’ve heard some people question what value Corey is delivering to the community.
Corey has been an influence on my own career since he and I met at Agile 2006. His passion for software and the community has led me to further my own outreaches (including the Day of Ruby events I put on in Florida and that he helped co-teach with me). Further, his conviction of outreach led to the very tour which has inspired many, many people in the community about what it really means to put your money where your mouth is and show us that if we put the impossible aside and trust that we’ll be taken care of, we really will.
I’m honored to have been able to host Corey several times at my own house, and to spend many hours chatting with him. And to watch his interactions with other members in the community – well, if you’ve talked to Corey, or talked to someone you have, the thought that his contributions back to this community of professionals approach zero are laughable at best.
It is with great pleasure that I support Corey in his campaign, and in his future ventures. He’s truly a sign of what can happen when one reaches out to the community – and the community reaches back.
I had no hesitation supporting Corey’s tour, even though I only just got the chance to meet him at Agile 2009 in Chicago. I’ve had so much inspiration from his programming tour videos and ‘how I got started’ interviews that it was a no-brainer.