I wanted to point out two great interviews by Mike Brogan with Andrew Eddie on The Joomla! Podcast.

The first interview covers some of Andrew's professional background and interesting history on the Joomla! project, leading up to a discussion on Joomla! 1.6.

In the second interview, Andrew shares information on extensions offered at JXtended and educational material at the Art of Joomla!. If you are interested in learning about Joomla!, I highly recommend subscribing to Andrew's Joomla! Developer Reference where you will learn expert techniques.

It was interesting hearing Andrew talk about the JX Finder extension and how he, Louis Landry, and Rob Schley are envisioning refining the work for hopeful inclusion in core as they build these extensions. The JXtended Comments extension is one example of how they have already done that by ear-marking this work for inclusion in 1.6.

I also enjoyed the discussion on involvement and the (sometimes noisy) community process. I agree 100% with Mike as he pointed out Andrew does a great job of listening and helping people gain awareness of how they can help make things happen. During this segment, Andrew said "The community is the development team now." and shared these links for getting involved.

• Joomla! Bug Squad (Andrew strongly encourages involvement here for budding developers who want to start getting involved.)
• Joomla! General Development (3rd Party discussion welcome)
• Joomla 1.6 CMS Development
• Joomla 1.6 Framework Development

Since Andrew is arguablely "Mr. Joomla!", hearing him talk about how the vision for Joomla! 2.0, an effort that Andrew credited Louis with helping guide, will be disentangled from Item ID issues, have flexible ACL and taxonomy systems, and is already starting to take shape. Good to hear Andrew say when 1.6 is complete, he will be helping with 2.0.

Mike Brogan keep up the good work. Your contributions are appreciated!