Hello!
This is my first post as a member of the Curl community. It seems odd to be saying "welcome" to all of you when in fact I'm the newcomer. I hope to earn your respect and make myself useful.
My title at Curl is "VP of Developer Relations" which is a fancy way of saying "ambassador to our developers". Hopefully I can be a lot more than a messenger, however. I actually want to act as your representative so that you have someone in the executive ranks making your case and arguing for the features you want and need on this site and in the product itself. To do that, however, I need your help. Specifically, let me know what you like and don't like about the developer center and the product. We won't be able to change everything we please, but we'll have more influence on our development environment than most communities.
Curl has made some serious strategic moves to create a great community. Curl places so much importance on its development community it created an executive position to address it. That post was previously held by Marc Orchant who died last year. Marc was a great guy and its going to be a challenge trying to fill his shoes. I hope I can live up to his legacy.
Personally, I think its says a lot that Curl chose a non-executive type for an executive position. Although I've been out of the trenches for a couple years, I am, and always will be, more of a developer than a suit. (No offense to those people who do wear suits. You are nice people. Don't change a thing!) I joined Curl because I saw a great technology that needed a grass roots movement. I've been involved in a few grass roots movements in the past (e.g. Java, open source, Java EE) and I can contribute a lot to our community.
One of the first things I want to do is reach out the all you Curlers who have historically been silent and say "Welcome!". I know the developer center doesn't look very different but there is a very different vibe at the home office these days. Curl has always been responsive to its developers - the product engineers frequently answer questions on the forum - but it hasn't been very proactive. I hope to change that. We are going to implement lots of new and helpful features like giving the developer center a face lift, adding better on-line documentation, and much more. In a nutshell you are going to see a lot change and you will hopefully feel a stronger bond to the Curl community.
I'm looking forward to meeting and working with everyone in the Curl community. If you have any questions or just want to chat I'm always available at rmh@curl.com
Again, Welcome!
Richard Monson-Haefel
VP of Developer Relations
Curl, Inc.
