In 2005 I started writing SQLAlchemy, the Database Toolkit for Python. My goal was to change the way people think about databases and SQL, to show how automation can greatly enhance productivity, and of course to help popularize the Python scripting language, at the time an upstart scripting language trying to attract attention away from Perl and Ruby.

When I first saw the unit of work code flush a bunch of SQL to a SQLite database, I was amazed. The code to do so was really quite awful, and I couldn't keep it all in my head at once, but it just squeaked by as a proof of concept. It took many years for the library to have a solid design which required among other things that I not be awful at Python. But that amazing thing it did right at the beginning kept it going and people stuck with it anyway.

Eventually, with the help of hundreds of contributors and the lessons learned from tens of thousands of emails and issue reports answered we've all figured out most of the other problems too. So I give you, SQLAlchemy, the Thing I've Done to Help the World, as well as a few other libraries like Alembic Migrations and dogpile.cache, and I hope it's made your life better! I also play the drums.

• mike bayer a.k.a. zzzeek http://techspot.zzzeek.org