I started developing the Apprenticeship Patterns in the Spring of 2005. I sort of stumbled into the topic thanks to a convergence of events. First, Brian Marick hooked me up with StickyMinds.com who asked me to write a column for them. Since they had just signed up the Prags to write about software craftsmanship, they asked me if I could write on that topic. Being a fan of McBreen's Software Craftsmanship, I was thrilled at the opportunity to write about one of my favorite topics and accepted their offer. Yet I wasn't sure how I, a programmer with just over 4 years of experience and no technical education, was going to have much to offer on the subject. Eventually I deduced that the only thing I was qualified to write about was my journey from knowing nothing to teaching myself enough to get hired by ThoughtWorks in a relatively short time span. This set the stage for my focus, and eventually I was reading Chris Morris's blog and found the inspiration for Be the Worst, the first pattern in the language I'm still developing with Adewale Oshineye.
Toward the end of 2005 I had to put my writing on hold in order to participate in the unique opportunity to get paid to develop in Ruby, a language I had been waiting almost 3 years to use in my day job. Thanks to Rails I stopped writing, I left ThoughtWorks, joined Obtiva, presented at RailsConf 2006, developed our Rails TDD course, and started our Craftsmanship Studio, where I have tried to create an environment that is conducive to successful apprenticeships.
Mary Treseler was the first editor to express interest in publishing the patterns back in 2005. She didn't forget about the Apprenticeship Patterns over the years and encouraged us to finish them and publish them with O'Reilly. And here we are. It's good to be here.
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