Ian McFarland is one of the true old hands of Java development. He has been working with Java since version 1.0a2, and actually wrote the first client-server Java application ever: a demo seating reservation system used for the Java product announcement at SunWorld in 1995. He is the author of Mastering Tomcat Development, published by J. Wiley and Sons, and has written articles for Java Developer's Journal, Developer.com, and the Java Developer Connection. He was on the launch team at HotWired, served as Java Evangelist for Symantec Visual Cafe, and led the engineering team at Friendster as it grew from 120,000 to 3 Million users in 6 months, and then doubled two more times in the following 6 months.

Ian has been a practising Agilist for four years, has spoken on agile development on numerous occasions, and has worked on demanding applications for several major clients since joining Pivotal Computer Systems. He is a frequent trainer and speaker on agile practices, and has developed courseware for clients as well.