Thanks to all of you readers, and an especial thanks to each of you who commented on my writings. See you 'round the blogosphere!

Dave has served as Test Architect at Mozilla Corporation and as QA Manager at Yahoo!, so he knows his way around complex, distributed, networked systems. What's more, he has the know-how to translate his experiences into the product you are building, even if said product is neither complex nor distributed nor networked. Through it all, Dave helps you keep track of what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how you will know you are done.

Here is what Dave has to say:

Scott tells me that if he was not in software he would be some sort of craftsman because "I really like the idea of doing a job you can get better at every day". He recounts a Discovery Channel special on how aircraft carriers are built, a process which involves welding together giant panels of steel. The host watched as a welder took a panel which had buckled from the heat of welding it and completely flattened it with a single hit of his hammer. When the host asked the welder how he knew where and how to hit the panel, the welder replied "Twenty-eight years on the job".

Although Scott has only six years on the job so far, I am sure his teammates would agree that he knows where and how to hit their buckled panels in order to flatten them out. Here is what Scott has to say:

Regardless of how you come to know Michael, his passion for improving the craft of testing and for helping testers improve themselves comes shining through. Here is what Michael has to say:

Oh, I get it: Dmitri is the type of tester for whom Microsoft originally coined the title Software Development Engineer in Test: he spends his days developing software to help other testers better do their job. In Dmitri's case this has largely meant putting massive amounts of time into developing the tool many Microsoft testers use to automate their drive-my-application's-user-interface test cases. Dmitri's Doctorate Of Mathematics and experience in mathematical and computer modeling seems to be holding him in good stead as he navigates the intricacies of automating the user interfaces of Microsoft's many different applications and operating systems.

Here is what Dmitri has to say:

Perhaps more germane to this blog, however, is that Gil Broza has been working on software for close to two decades and has been XPing and Agileing for much of that time. Regardless of whether you have a financial, bioinformatics, or content delivery system to maintain or to build, Gil can show you, coach you, and help you do so in an Agile and Industrial XP fashion. You may have heard Gil talking at Agile 2008, at DDJ's own SD Best Practices conference, or at one of Industrial Logic's workshops on various XP-related topics.

Here is what Gil has to say:

Keith was an early adopter of Extreme Programming and Agile and has learned lots about how to succeed (and fail) at adopting these practices for everything from line-of-business applications to embedded software. For the last several years he has been passing along his learnings to the rest of us in the form of blog posts, papers, and presentations, including several talks at the recent Agile 2008.

Here is what Keith has to say:

If this seems an audacious goal, well, Michael is an audacious guy. He is so passionate about politics - both in general and in specifics - that he is Team Lead for the Microsoft Political Action Committee. As a volunteer planning commissioner for his town he is leading a comprehensive for-the-next-century replanning effort which involves patterns applied at every level, concepts ranging from robotics to Aristotle, and innovative technologies from across Microsoft and the industry. As before, while I don't know whether he will be successful in this endeavor, I imagine he and his compatriots are in for a fun ride.

(Can you guess what he talks about in the testing classes he teaches? Yep: patterns applied at every level, concepts ranging from robotics to Aristotle, and innovative technologies and testing approaches from across Microsoft and the industry.)

Here is what Michael has to say:

Here is what Ethan has to say:

Here is what Amol has to say:

Here is what Scott has to say:

Here is what Kyle has to say:

I remember the first time I met Jim in person. I figured we'd talk for an hour or so and then I'd be on my way. Instead, we talked for over four hours. We stopped then only because we each had supper engagements!

One reason Jim and I talked from one meal clear through to the next is that both of us want to understand most everything. Jim has a knack for asking questions which uncover other questions which uncover other questions and so on until he uncovers the root of whatever matter is being discussed. I discovered this helps him be an excellent lunch companion. A plethora of companies have discovered this also helps him move companies from floundering to fabulous.

Jim pays attention to who does what, when. He calls this Conscious Development. I believe he would join me in also calling it fun. Here is what Jim has to say:

Keith scales mountains when he's not at work too, albeit ones of a rather more physical nature, like Washington State's Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams.

Here is what Keith has to say:

Here is what Edward has to say: