Last night, SD West gave out the 19th annual Jolt awards. As one of the creators of the Jolt awards, there’s a soft spot in my heart for what they represent.

Each year, the Jolt award judges (and I was one for many years, until the award owners realized that I was nominally a ‘competitor’) looked for the products that truly jolted the productivity of individual developers, or of development teams. The top product in each category won the coveted Jolt award, while a few runners-up were given a Productivity award.

My hat goes off to the many judges who have maintained the Jolt awards over the years, but especially to rest of the launch team: J.D. Hildebrand, Larry O’Brien and Michael Mulholland. (You can read J.D.’s first-hand report about the creation of the Jolt awards in “In Praise of 1990’s Best.”

Who produces the Jolt awards? Over the years, ownership and stewardship has moved. At first, they were given out by Computer Language. Computer Language was renamed as Software Development, of course, and then it was folded into Dr. Dobb’s Journal. During this period, the Jolt awards were overseen by the appropriate magazine’s editors. Today, without a publication to work with, the awards are run by the SD West show management team.

Of course, while yours truly is no longer associated with the Jolt awards, I’m happy that two of the learned judges are SD Times columnists. One of them is Jolt award co-founder Larry O’Brien. The other is Andrew Binstock, who presented the Jolt awards last night.

Let’s have a big shout-out for Andrew, and a heartfelt congratulations for this year’s Jolt award winners.