Acknowledgments

We’re living in a rather unusual time, through a global pandemic combined with many regional issues. In hindsight, writing this book has given me a much needed reprieve, however temporary. The time spent on this book and interacting with Jackie, my editor, and the reviewers has been the high point of these months.

I would like to start by thanking Andy Hunt and Dave Rankin of the Pragmatic Bookshelf for giving me this opportunity. Dave was incredibly supportive and helpful in the formation of this book. His constructive feedback through every step was very useful.

Part of my motivation to write books is the opportunity to interact with Jackie, who, over time, has turned into a good friend. I admire her ability to put in such tireless efforts while dealing with many uncertainties of the current times. Thank you for spending time talking about the book and for motivating me when things appeared rather bleak.

This book has evolved so much based on the extensive feedback by an amazing set of technical reviewers. They offered so many suggestions, corrected me where the details were not accurate, and motivated me to rework parts that needed significant improvements. My sincere thanks to Tom Adam, Vasile Boris, Hadi Hariri, James Harmon, Rebecca Parsons, Eugene Petrenko, Ian Roughley, William Rudenmalm, Ilya Ryzhenkov, Giordano Scalzo, Ken Sipe, and Bruce Tate.

One benefit of releasing the book in beta is the opportunity to improve it using the feedback from early readers. I thank Graeme Collis and Curtis Riggs for helping me to fix errors.

I thank my wife Kavitha for her support and letting me hide in the basement hours on end as I worked on this book.