Erich Gamma, one of the four co-authors of Design Patterns, known as GoF (Gang of Four), has joined Microsoft Visual Studio team.
Gamma has joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer and will work on Visual Studio, according to Jason Zander, Corporate VP for Visual Studio. Nothing is said about what projects he will work on or why he left IBM, only that he will continue to work out of Zurich, Switzerland, where Microsoft will create a lab to be led by him.
Gamma became famous after Design Patterns – Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, the book he co-authored along with Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides, was published and was embraced by the software community as a guide for object-oriented software development. He used to be a Distinguished Engineer for Rational Software from 1998, then for IBM after they acquired Rational.
Gamma is also known for JUnit, the unit testing framework he developed with Kent Beck, for his contribution to the Eclipse platform as one of the leads, head of Eclipse Java Development Tools project, and several technical key roles for IBM/Rational Jazz, Team Concert and Collaborative Lifecycle Management.
Gamma is certainly a valuable asset for the Visual Studio team, given his long experience with Eclipse and general technical expertise.