Acknowledgments

We would like to offer our deepest thanks to Manning Publications and their team: Michael Stephens, Nermina Miller, Megan Yockey, our copy editors, proofreaders, production team, and everyone else who had a hand in making this project happen. We know it’s been a long road, and we deeply appreciate your bearing with us.

We’d also like to thank our contributors who collaborated with us on six chapters: Yehuda Katz, chapters 8 and 10; David Black, chapter 9; Gregory Brown, chapter 13; Peter Cooper, chapter 12; and Luke Melia, chapter 11. Their contributions have been invaluable.

The reviewers who took time out of their busy schedules to read the manuscript in its many iterations deserve special recognition. They are Pete McBreen, David Black, Greg Donald, Mike Stok, Phillip Hallstrom, Jason Rogers, Bill Fly, Doug Warren, Jeff Cunningham, Pete Pavlovich, Deepak Vohra, Patrick Dennis, Christopher Haupt, Robert McGovern, Scott Shaw, Mark Ryall, Sheldon Kotyk, Max Bolingbroke, Marco Ughetti, Tom Werner, Rick Evans, Chukwuemeka Nwankwo, and Bob Hutchinson.

We would thank our technical editor, Yossef Mendelssohn, except that he’s probably too busy putting the hurt on some code or something. Also, for keeping us in check, Nick Sieger and Hamish Sanderson.

Jeremy would like to thank his wife (for not killing him, even though sometimes he’s sure she wanted to during this whole process), his family (for not forgetting who he was, even though he rarely had time to visit), his coworkers (for not making fun of him for taking two years to write a book), and God (for the whole giving-him-life thing). He would also like to give a shout-out to his dogs, since they can’t read.

Assaf would like to thank his wife for putting up with “Weekend plans? What weekend plans? I have some chapters to edit!” as well as his friends and coworkers for asking politely about the book but understanding that these things take time. Ruby, for bringing the fun back to programming. And the many people who wrote the libraries, tools, and blog posts that helped Ruby come this far. Without you, this book would not be possible.