Yahoo! Adieu Hack by Ravikiran J

Shyam

Thanks a lot Shyam for your constant support and approval emails with lightning quick response. Without the above, I could have never built my beloved dashboard.
Rama

I still remember meeting Rama at the Y! bootcamp and how excited I really was to be part of the My Yahoo! team. Thanks a lot for taking me under your wing during those initial days and helping me mature as a professional. Without your push, the social modules that I developed would have just lied within my dev box instead of being used by millions of My Yahoo! users.
Sanjeev

To Sanjeev, I owe a lot in my professional career. First as being a fantastic manager, secondly giving me amazing projects to work on in my 2 year tenure at Y! that helped me learn a lot of new technologies and third, constantly encouraging me to try out new hacks or develop some interesting stuff.

Out of all the above, the most I would miss would be something non-technical, i.e, all those sports talk that we used to have in our spare time or during lunch. Those fantastic conversations about test cricket, swing bowling, football, tennis etc. You are the best manager any rookie could have, best of luck for your future endeavours, hope you can guide My Y! team to new heights of success.
Natarajan aka Knutties

Knutties is the first guy who really got me thinking about design first and implement next. He was always the first person I would look up to whenever I would embark on a new project/hack. If I have learnt anything about performance oriented design of applications, it should be solely attributed to him.

Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity to attend the HackU event at IIT-Kharagpur which taught me a whole lot of new things. I remember the day when you gave me a bravo, and I ended up working like a crazy horse the following day, you're truly an inspiration. Under your technical guidance, I'm sure our My Y! team will succeed in every challenge posed.
Nikhil

Nikhil is single handedly the most talented person I've found in Yahoo! along one more special guy. Without any disrespect, I think he owned all of us with his amazing skills whether it comes to frontend coding or optimizations or design, you name it, he's got it. His work speaks for himself, if you ever get time, just analyse the modules he has built, the supreme simplicity of his coding will literally blow your minds.

With utmost pride, I have always boasted one sentence to my friends, "If I ever learnt any javascript, it was solely due to two gentlemen in Yahoo!, one was Doughlas Crockford, the other being Nikhil S". I really feel you can contribute so much to our team and I truly believe that one day you will build/design a truly kickarse product that all of us will use one day.
Vamsi

Vamsi, my favorite person and best friend I made at Yahoo!. I don't think I have passed a single day without discussing some technical problem with Vamsi. I really loved the time when we did pair coding on the Facebook and LinkedIn modules. I've been gifted to find amazing friends right from P.U (Abhiram/Puranik), Engineering (Sachi/Sudhee) and at Yahoo! (Vamsi), for that I'm forever grateful to all of them.

All the things I learnt about security of a web application was through Vamsi. He would be the first person that I would tell what was I upto, where I was stuck at, how I solved a particulary interesting problem. Technically gifted, it was truly a pleasure interacting and working with you Vamsi. I forever cherish the bravo you gave me for my relentless pursuit in solving the lengthy strings problem while developing the facebook module.
Sushil

Sushil, the "King of Instrumentation" and also the warhorse of My Yahoo! team. I have never seen such a calm person like him, his dedication while explaining any doubt you asked him was truly amazing. You could ask him anything, frontend, backend, etc, Sushil would come to your desk and would never leave you until you understood the A-Z of it.

He really got me started at Yahoo! with an amazing project and I received a bravo from him for which I cannot thank enough ! I will surely give you a visit during my time in the US of A my friend.
Tim Tully

Tim Tully, the "Don of Instrumentation" and one of my idols at Yahoo!. Along with Nikhil, Tim is the most talented person I met in Yahoo!. He really owns 50% part of the success I achieved with my instrumentation projects. I still remember the day when I asked him why some variable was local instead of being global in javascript and without dismissing it as a silly question, he duly explained the same, which goes to show the humility of the genius he is.

I have saved the chat I had with him when I was going through a very rough time at Yahoo! (bringing down a property for 20 days :P). The confidence Tim gave me that day propelled me to explore and develop some really kool stuff and I was very fortunate to meet him during my last week at Yahoo!. You are truly inspiring and I owe you too much to mention in this hack :) !
Doughlas Crockford

"Douglas Crockford is regularly stopped by customs agents for importing too much awesomeness" (Source: @CrockfordFacts). What can I say about this awesome gentleman ? Without his tutorial videos, I would have never learnt javascript. His contribution to Javascript is commendable, along with JSON and jslint. I would recommend watching all of his videos found @ http://yuiblog.com/crockford/ to grasp the awesomeness of Crockford :D.
Srinivas Yedhuri aka Srini

It has been a pleasure working alongside Srini, my neighbour at work ! I donno how many times I bugged him initially to setup my box. He was always the help key (F1) for me for all the troubles I got stuck into. An awesome guy and a really talented frontend developer !!! Thanks a lot Srini for all the help !
Sandesh

Sandesh, my TT (Table Tennis) coach :D ! I finally learnt how to smash and attack in TT courtesy of him. He epitomes the fun part of work literally and figuratively, always a livewire during outings (I can never forget how we rowed together at the front during Coorg Rafting, tat was \m/) , and a great guy to be with. Pleasure working with you man, and please keep up the Goa-n spirit alive in My Yahoo!.
Manohar Balanki

Balanki, you need to pay royalty fee to me. Why ? For testing left, right and center out of IE6, IE7 and IE8 browsers (Microsoft won't mind) on my box, hehe ! Again, another fantastic guy to be with, and please somebody be on his side, else the deadly twins (Srini and Sandesh) will bully him to the brink of eternity !!!
Manoher T

Manoher T is like "Gandalf, The Wise One" (remember Lord of the Rings) of My Yahoo! team. He can probably maintain the entire backend single handedly and I bet you ask him about any ancient feature/code, he will fill up the gaps in no time. I still remember the day when he gave me Fantasy Sports module to code which will always remains special to me, as it was the first module I ever developed (not the best though, but then I was a noob, I still 'm). Thanks a lot for all your help Manoher over the ton of issues I've bugged you with ;) !
EGL Cab 26

Cab mates become such an integral part of life once you come to the industry. I had the best cab mates during my first year in EGL, where we would play cards, play subtle jokes and discuss all sorts of non-sense and common-sense. Thanks a lot to all the EGL Cab-26 mates for such a wonderful time while you/I was there, especially Pavan, Prateek, Ram Rao, Anand Katti, Harsha, etc. You were all awesome, if you didn't know how awesome EGL Cab-26 was, please try BTP cabs :P !
Pradeepa

Pradeepa, "Guiness Record Holder for Most no. of clicks in 1 second (60+, seriously, I have seen her achieve this feat while trying to reproduce a bug), most no. of bugs closed/bashed in a day", she's just from another planet, its just impossible for anyone else to do what she does. An amazing person to have in our team and deserves fantastic accolades from every1 (Go ahead, clap!).

I have always believed every developer is a QA and every QA is a developer and I learnt a trick or two of testing from her during my initial days. If she's raising bugs in the feature you implemented, that's a really good sign, as you're sure shot gonna be saved of a production escalation :P !!! Thanks a lot Pradeepa for the brilliant QA work you do everyday !
My Yahoo! SE

Nasid, Chaitanya, Gijoy and Amit, I have no clue of the no. of emails I have sent for new builds, access, debugging help etc. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me in all the issues I've raised with you. SE folks are just super special people, they just build a fortress and protect you from all possible bad things that can happen. I think their jobs are the most toughest , even tougher than the architects if I may say.

I cannot help say, that you're the real ROCKSTARS of our team, and that's the bottomline :D ! Even with all the tension and pressure you face everyday, you were always the most pleasant people to talk to in Yahoo!, I have no idea how you did it but then you were all just truly fantastico !
Rajesh

Rajesh, my TT buddy. For heaven's sake stop playing defensively and attack more!!!!! Another fantastic guy always with a smile tackling any mind boggling issue ;) ! It was pleasure playin and working with you buddy, best of luck for your career !!!
Shelly

Since I arrived in My Yahoo!, I always felt something was missing from the start. Any guesses ? (Ok, Females, agreed)...anything else....., Yes, it was the ruthless attitude and none provided that better than "Shelly". In simple words, let's just say she "straightened up" My Yahoo! top to bottom and got things aligned. Thank you Shelly for helping me straighten things whenever I felt they were goin in circles and adding the feminine touch to our team :D !
GRID Folks

Peeyush, Vineeth, Rohini and many more. You guys help people like me across teams to the max extent possible, for that, all of us who received help are indebted to you.
Michael Hirsch

Thanks a lot Michael for encouraging my hacks or suggestions during various feature implementations and I appreciate your nice gesture of awarding me Knighthood :D !
Rachana

Thanks a lot Rachana for all those challenging yet sometimes weird bugs which made me find intelligent solutions to solve the same.
Everyone at Yahoo!!!!!!!!!

I really have to thank so many folks at Yahoo!, that the list goes on and on..... The EGL 1st Floor Pool table folks (damn, I became a 8 ball Doubles Pool Champion in less than a year :)! ), the HackU folks (Chelliah Sir, Saurabh Sahni, Harsha, Prajwal, Balaji, Shivendra etc), Amul Tuck Shop (God, I've had half the food in the last 2 years there), YAP folks (Miki) and many more....

I've learnt some amazing stuff at Yahoo! (technical, non-technical) but the one feature that I really want to take with me is the humility exhibited by Yahoo!s, its truly heart-warming to see such talented people being down to earth and explain even the most silliest of things you ask them. It's been a fantastic experience and I think that with little focus and vision, Yahoo! can truly regain its lost crown in the tech world !!! Thanks a lot again, one and all ! Yahoooooooooooo!!!