Acknowledgments

This book would have never existed without the encouragement of my doctoral advisor and friend, Professor Victor W. Marek. The pushing was always welcome, the confidence was always needed, and the responsibility is mine to pay forward.

I would never have imagined the effort that it takes to produce a book if I hadn’t experienced it myself. Whether or not this effort produced the desired result will be decided by my readers, but there should be no doubt that an army of reviewers, editors, and other contributors spent many hours in the pursuit of a high-quality book. Having contributed to and reviewed other books from other publishers as I wrote this book, I can honestly say that Manning does everything they can to produce the very best work possible. I especially want to thank Susan Conant, my development editor for most of this book, for her tireless work, continually pushing for improvements. Thanks also to publisher Marjan Bace and everyone on the editorial and production teams, including Mary Piergies, Cynthia Kane, Andy Carroll, Katie Tennant, and many others who worked behind the scenes. Finally, I want to thank the following individuals, who read drafts of this book and provided suggestions: Andy Kirsch, Chris Snow, Fernando Rodrigues, Hafizur Rahman, Jeff Lim, Kosmas Chatzimichalis, Matt Harting, Mayur Patil, Michael Hamrah, Peeyush Maharshi, and Toby Lazar.