From http://www.ddj.com/authors.htm

[Georg Wrede]

Quoting from the page:

> If you have an article idea, you should first send us an article
> proposal. This is a short statement (about one page) that says what your
> article will be about. You can mail it to our <a href="address.htm">office</a>
> or e-mail it to <a href="mailto:editors at ddj.com">editors at ddj.com</a>.
> Be sure to give us several ways to contact you (such as phone number,
> e-mail address, fax number, and mailing address). We'll look at your
> idea and get back to you, usually within a month.</p>
...
> <p>Although many people simply write their entire article and send it
> to us, there are several *advantages* to sending us a proposal. We can
> look at your idea and possibly suggest a particular slant you hadn't
> considered. We can also help you to organize the article.

Later, when you start writing the article itself:

> Write as if you are giving a brief, informal talk to a group of
> coworkers. You want to be concise and well organized because you don't
> want to waste their time, but you don't want to be too stuffy or
> formal because you know them.

Ah, and to give you more of the "feel" of being an article author, 
here's another quote from the same page:

> Illustrations and screen captures offer an opportunity to lure
> anyone looking through an issue into reading your article. They
> can also provide succinct summaries of complex ideas. Since we
> redraw most figures anyway, to conform to our size and style
> requirements,
> you should not worry about making your images very high quality.
> Many authors prefer to sketch them by hand and fax or mail them.

Heh, especially the last sentence. The same goes for the text itself. 
The point being, from the magazine's point of view, most stuff sent to 
them is by teenagers, idiots, mentals, over-the-hill old-timers -- and 
only a handful is stuff they'd be interested in. Now, for those few, 
they'd kill, lick your boots, or even sharpen your pencil for you.

As to whether this would interest them, all you have to send them is the 
above mentioned Ingress. Let them take over from that. Simply naming 
Walter as a reference should get you a definite YES/NO from them. And 
once you get the YES, they'll hold your hand through and through.

---

For you personally, having your article in DDJ is of course "nice". But 
the real benefit is that then you've done it, been there. So, by the 
time D advances yet another bit, and your "template jujitsu" turns into 
"template nuke" (as perceived from the audience -- you'll never notice 
the change yourself!), it's gonna be a lot easier to jot up something 
for them again. Or for the next magazine. (Ahem, I'm ashamed to say, but 
at least as I experienced, my first article was a bit like "doing it for 
the first time with a woman". Once you get over it, the next one is a 
piece of cake.)

Thusly, both now and in the future, you're in a position to do D a /lot/ 
of good -- with effort that's actually less than some of your better D 
forages to date.

PS, if they get back to you within /less/ than 4 weeks, they're 
drooling. Unless they've read this post, of course. ;-)