Acknowledgments

A number of people worked hard to make this a better book. They include

Marjan Bace, Manning’s publisher, who asked me to write this book in the first place.
Sebastian Stirling and Jennifer Stout, development editors on the first and second editions, respectively. Each spent many hours helping me organize the material, clarify concepts, and generally make the text more interesting.
Pablo Domínguez Vaselli, technical proofreader, who helped uncover areas of confusion and provided an independent and expert eye for testing code. I came to rely on his vast knowledge, careful reviews, and considered judgment.
Olivia Booth, the review editor, who helped obtain reviewers and coordinate the review process.
Mary Piergies, who helped shepherd this book through the production process, and her team of Tiffany Taylor, Toma Mulligan, Janet Vail, David Novak, and Marija Tudor.
The peer reviewers who spent hours of their own time carefully reading through the material, finding typos, and making valuable substantive suggestions: Bryce Darling, Christian Theil Have, Cris Weber, Deepak Vohra, Dwight Barry, George Gaines, Indrajit Sen Gupta, Dr. L. Duleep Kumar Samuel, Mahesh Srinivason, Marc Paradis, Peter Rabinovitch, Ravishankar Rajagopalan, Samuel Dale McQuillin, and Zekai Otles.
The many Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) participants who bought the book before it was finished, asked great questions, pointed out errors, and made helpful suggestions.