Martin Fowler contributed the handy concept of "visibility" to the methodology discussion, in addition to helping with constructive comments and being very gentle where he thought something was terrible.

Other energetic reviewers I would like to recognize and thank (in first-name alphabetical order) are Alan Harriman, Allen Galleman, Andrea Branca, Andy Sen, Bill Caputo, Charles Herbaut, Charlie Toland, Chris Lopez, Debbie Utley, Glenn Vanderburg, James Hanrahan, Jeff Miller, Jeff Patton, Jesper Kornerup, Jim Sawyer, John Brewer, John Cook, Keith Damon, Laurence Archer, Michael Van Hilst, Nick Fortescue, Patrick Manion, Phil Goodwin, Richard Pfeiffer, Ron Holiday, Scott Jackson, Ted Young, Tom DeMarco, and Tracy Bialik.

The Silicon Valley Patterns Group took the trouble to dissect the draft as a group, for which I doubly thank them.

All these people did their best to see that I fixed the weak parts and kept the good parts. If I had had another few years to keep reworking the book, I might even have been able to get it to the point that they would have accepted it.

In the absence of those extra years, I thank them for their efforts and apologize for not being able to fix all the awkward spots.

Thank goodness the Beans & Brews coffee shop finally started playing jazz and rock again. I lost several months of writing to heavy metal and country music.

Unknowable and Incommunicable

This introductory chapter sets up two questions: "Can you ever know what you are experiencing, and can you ever communicate it?" The short answer, "No, you can't," creates the basic dilemma that this book addresses.

If you can't know what you are experiencing, how can you reflect on projects, and how can you form recommendations for doing better? Both spending time on irrelevant factors and overlooking important factors will hurt you. This inescapable problem faces every person who is trying to work better: methodologist, researcher, and practitioner alike.