Acknowledgments

Writing a book is not a trivial undertaking, and the tireless collaboration of many people with a variety of talents brought to life the manuscript you’re holding (or reading onscreen).

The staff at Manning were incredible and instrumental in obtaining the level of quality we all hoped for, and I thank all of them from the bottom of my heart. Without them, this book would not have been possible. Special thanks to Marjan Bace and Mike Stephens for believing in the idea of this book and in me as an author; to Marina Michaels, for giving me a map and a flashlight to navigate this maze of book-writing challenges; to Susan Conant, for bringing me up to speed and teaching me my first lessons about what it means to write a technical book; to Bert Bates, for giving me my initial sparks of creativity and for his amazing insights on how to teach programming; and to everyone on the editorial and production teams, including Mary Piergies, Janet Vail, Kevin Sullivan, Tiffany Taylor, Katie Tennant, Dennis Dalinnik, and many others who worked behind the scenes.