Erich Gamma, one of the Gang of Four, has left IBM to join the Visual Studio team as a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and head a new Visual Studio Lab in Zurich.

Gamma is probably best known as co-author of Design Patterns the book from the Gang of Four (GOF) which promoted the idea of using objects in more sophisticated but regular ways.

Together with another well known software engineer, Kent Beck, he developed the JUnit unit test framework and was also one of the key technical leads of the Eclipse project and has led the Eclipse Java Development tools. From 1998 has was a Distinguished Engineer for Rational Software and then for IBM after they acquired Rational.

The news was announced in Jason Zander's blog where he also the explains that Microsoft is opening a new Visual Studio Lab in Zurich, Switzerland where Erich will continue to live and work.

Developers who are interested in applying for positions with the new Zurich lab are invited to obtain details.