Acknowledgments

To my wife Angela: you have provided me with the love and support that I need to be successful in my career. Thanks for being there for me always and talking to me about technology even though I know it bores you. You have always been, and will continue to be, my inspiration for success. I am so happy raising our children together; I hope they will turn out to be as kind and loving as you are.

To my children Kaitlyn, Jacob, Matthew, and Zachary: please stop growing up! I love you all so much and enjoy having such wonderful children. We will read through this book together one day, and you, too, can learn the joy of developing successful software. For now, I will enjoy all the time we have together as you continue to grow and learn more each day.

I want to thank my family for their continued support in my career. You have always listened to my lectures on technology and programming, and I appreciate that. It means the world to me. I want to thank my co-workers at Fermilab for allowing me to guide the organization's application development efforts and build successful solutions to keep us moving forward.

To my co-authors Carl Dea, Freddy Guime, John O'Conner, and Mark Beaty: you are excellent authors and experts in Java technology and I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with each of you. I thank you all for working together to produce this excellent book; it would not have been possible without you.

To the folks at Apress, I thank you for providing me with the chance to share my knowledge with others. I especially thank Jonathan Gennick for the continued support of my work and for providing the guidance to produce useful content for our readers. You've become a good friend over the last couple of years and I really enjoy working with you. I thank Annie Beck and Anita Castro for the ability to coordinate the efforts of each author who contributed to this book; you have both done an outstanding job. I also would like to thank Steve Anglin for believing in my abilities to author books on the Java technology for Apress. The technical reviewers, David Coffin and Mark Beaty, have done an excellent job of solidifying the book content. Thanks for your hard work and technical expertise. Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone else at Apress who had a hand in this book.

To the Java community, I thank you all for helping the JVM to become a successful development platform. We all have the privilege of working with a mature and robust platform, and it would not be successful today if it weren't for everyone's continued contributions to the technology. I also thank all the Oracle Java experts: you hit a home run with Java 7 and the roadmap for the future is looking great. I am looking forward to using Java technology for many years to come.

--Josh

I would like to thank my wife, Tracey, and my daughters, Caitlin and Gillian, for their loving support and sacrifices. A special thanks to my daughter Caitlin, who helped with illustrations and brainstorming fun examples. A big thanks to Jim Weaver for recommending me for this project and being so encouraging. I would also thank Josh Juneau for his leadership and guidance throughout this journey. I also want to thank my co-authors, John O'Conner, Freddy Guime, and Mark Beaty for their excellent advice. Thanks also to David Coffin for his uncanny ability to know my intentions and providing great feedback. I want to thank the wonderful people at Apress for their professionalism. A special thanks to Jonathan Gennick for believing in me and whipping me into shape. Thanks to Annie Beck and Anita Castro for keeping me on track when things got rough. Thanks to all who follow me on Twitter, especially the ones who relate to Java Swing and JavaFX. Also, thanks to Stephen Chin and Keith Combs for heading up the JavaFX User Group. Lastly, I want to give a big kudos and acknowledgment to the people at Oracle who helped me (directly or indirectly) as JavaFX 2.0 was being released: Jonathan Giles, Jasper Potts, Michael Heinrichs, Richard Bair, Amy Fowler, David DeHaven, Nicolas Lorain, Kevin Rushforth, Sheila Cepero, Gail Chappell, Cindy Castillo, Scott Hommel, Joni Gordon, Alexander Kouznetsov, Irina Fedortsova, Dmitry Kostovarov, Alla Redko, Igor Nekrestyanov, Nancy Hildebrandt, and all the Java, JavaFX, and NetBeans teams involved. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

--Carl

Dedicated to the love of my life (and wife) Gabriela; my three awesome children Jolie, Natalie and Max; and my mom Julia and dad Alberto.

--Freddy

Thanks to my supportive, patient, and loving wife Robyn; and our five children Jackson, Nicholas, Matthew, Tressa, and Ruby. Our greatest success is our wonderful close family. You make life great.

--John