Acknowledgments

I knew that writing a book would be difficult, but it was even harder than I anticipated, and it ended up taking quite a bit longer than I thought it would. My coworkers, friends, and family were very supportive throughout the process, and definitely deserve my thanks. Chris McGinty and Tommy Thompson provided feedback on some of the text. My neighbors Marybeth and McKay Wilson knew I was busy and seemed to take joy in mowing my lawn or clearing snow from my driveway before I could get to it, and they also dropped treats by occasionally. My friend Gayle Edlin published her own book while I was working on this one, which proved to me that it really could be done!

My Manning editor, Jennifer Stout, was my biggest cheerleader, always encouraging me when I got bogged down. Thanks for being so patient with me!

There were many reviewers who provided invaluable feedback throughout the process: Alban Thomas, Alfredo Alessandrini, Chris Gaschler, Fredric Ragnar, Gonzalo Vazquez, Jackie Wilson, Jiří Fejfar, Marcus Geselle, Nate Ron-Ferguson, Ramesha Murthy, Ryan Stelly, Scott Chaussée, Shaun Langley, and Thorsten Szutzkus. Rizwan Bilbul gave the complete manuscript a technical proofread.

The book never would’ve been finished without the help of the rest of the team at Manning, including Katie Tennant, Katie Petito, Kevin Sullivan, Chuck Larson, and Marija Tudor.

And last but not least, I’d like to acknowledge my students over the years, because without them this never would’ve happened. Nobody would’ve asked me to write a book if I hadn’t left old class materials stranded on the web, nor would I have realized how much I enjoyed helping people learn.