15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

If James Whitehead II knocked on my door right now, I might not recognize him -- but once I realized who he was, I'd throw my arms around his neck in gleeful gratitude. You see, Jim is the brains behind Clique, the popular click-casting add-on that's saved the aching fingers of healers across the globe. (That's worth a little gleeful gratitude, yes sir. And probably a little foot-washing and maybe even a little toe-sucking, too, truth be told. Not to descend into TMI right here in the intro or anything. Ahem.) He's also the creator of mods like PerfectRaid and TomTom and the author of Hacking World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Add-ons, now going into its second edition. He's working on a Ph.D. at Oxford University. He rows competitively, he mods, he knits and crochets, he raids ... Ok, ok, let's invite him in for a chat, shall we?

Meanwhile, be sure to enter to win our giveaway of six copies of the new, updated edition of World of Warcraft Programming.

Main character Derwydd ("druid")
Server EU Emerald Dream

15 Minutes of Fame: Your appreciation for the game seems to go deeper than a dry probe of functions you'd like to modify via an add-on. What's your personal WoWstyle?

Jim Whitehead: I like working together with other people for a common goal. I like raids and dungeons because of the lore and the fact that the group can set its own difficulty (by pulling fast and furious, four-manning, etc). I like the battlegrounds every once in a while, but people play them for honor and not for fun, which makes them less fun. Arena is so hard to break into and requires such a potential time commitment in getting gear and working up through the rankings. If I could find a good team that wasn't full of people who are undergeared and don't pay attention, I'd probably really enjoy it.

I am definitely not an altaholic, but I do enjoy have experience with all of the classes. I've leveled a rogue to 70, priest to 70, hunter to 70, druid to 80, death knight to 73 -- but beyond that I just don't have the patience. The rogue was first; the priest was with a purpose in mind; the hunter was because I was bored and it was easy; and the druid was my main. I've never gotten a paladin above 12, I think, for example. I'll eventually have them all at some level, but if I don't enjoy a class I'll stop playing.

How did your background in computers and your personal interest in gaming dovetail to get you where you are today?

Much like most people in my generation, my parents bought a computer when I was younger and either they weren't sure how to do something, or they weren't doing it to my satisfaction. I read the BASIC manual and just tinkered for a while. Then a family friend gave me his Commodore 64 that he had sitting around and I got to play even more! Mostly, though, my parents never discouraged me from working on the computer, and I still had my fair share of playing outside with friends.

I'm wasn't a child prodigy by any means, just a kid who liked working with computers and figuring out how they work. When I was in high school, the school didn't offer any computer courses that would have been even remotely challenging for me, so I took a half-day every day and went to a vocational school for computer courses for a year. I learned quite a lot during those classes, since they were fairly free-form and independent study and don't regret the time I missed by taking them.

Naturally, when I pick up World of Warcraft or my Android phone, I can't help but play with it, and that's how I got sucked into the mini-game of add-on development.
What was the first WoW add-on that you created?

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