Joseph Yoder is an agilist, computer scientist, object-oriented technologist, international speaker, and pattern author. Joe serves as president of the board of The Hillside Group, a group dedicated to improving the quality of software development. He is coauthor of the Big Ball of Mud pattern, which illuminates many fallacies in software architecture. Joe teaches and mentors developers on agile methods, design, patterns, refactoring, and testing. Joe believes that using good patterns and putting the ability to change software into the hands of the people with the knowledge to change it seems to be one promising avenue toward better software.