Acknowledgments

We are sincerely and humbly indebted to Doug Cutting. Without Doug’s generosity to the world, there would be no Lucene. Without the other Lucene committers, Lucene would have far fewer features, more bugs, and a much tougher time thriving with its growing adoption. Many thanks to all the committers, past and present. Similarly, we thank all those who contributed the case studies that appear in chapters 12, 13 and 14: Michele Catasta, Renaud Delbru, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen, Toke Eskildsen, Robert Fuller, Grant Glouser, Ken Krugler, Jake Mannix, Nickolai Toupikov, Giovanni Tummarello, Mads Villadsen, and John Wang. We’d also like to thank Doug Cutting for penning the foreword to the second edition.

Our thanks to the staff at Manning, including Marjan Bace, Jeff Bleiel, Sebstian Stirling, Karen Tegtmeyer, Liz Welch, Elizabeth Martin, Dottie Marsico, Mary Piergies, and Marija Tudor. Manning rounded up a great set of reviewers, whom we thank for improving our drafts into the book you now read. The reviewers include Chad Davis, Dave Pawson, Rob Allen, Rick Wagner, Michele Galli, Robi Sen, Stuart Caborn, Jeremy Flowers, Robert Hanson, Rodney Woodruff, Anton Mazkovoi, Ramarao Kanneganti, Matt Payne, Curtis Miller, Nathan Levesque, Cos DiFazio, and Andy Dingley. Extra-special thanks go to Shai Erera for his technical editing. Thank you to all our MEAP readers who posted feedback on Manning’s forums.

Michael McCandless

Writing a book is not easy. Writing a book about something as technically rich as Lucene is especially challenging. Writing a book about a successful, active, and fast moving open-source project is nearly impossible! Many things had to happen right for me to start and finish this book.

I would never have been part of this book without Doug having the initial itch, technical strength, and generosity to open-source his idea, without a vibrant community relentlessly pushing Lucene forward, without a forward-looking IBM supporting my involvement with Lucene and this book, and without Erik and Otis writing the first edition.

My four kids—Mia, Kyra, Joel, Kyle—always inspire me, with everything they do. Their boundless energy, free thinking, infinite series of insightful questions, amazing happiness, insatiable curiosity, gentle persistence, free sense of humor, sheer passion, temper tantrums, and sharp minds keep me very young at heart and inspire me to tackle big projects like this. You should strive, always, to remain a child.

I thank my wife, Jane, for convincing me to pursue this when Manning came knocking, and for her unmatched skills in efficiently running our busy family. Remarkably, she has made lots of time for me to work, write this book and still pursue all my crazy hobbies, and I can see that this ability is very rare.

My parents, all four of them, raised me with the courage to always stretch myself in what I try to tackle, but also with the discipline and persistence to finish what I start. They taught me integrity: if you commit to do something, you do it well. Always under-promise and overdeliver. They also led by example, showing me that individuals can do big things when they work hard. More importantly, they taught me that you should spend your life doing the things you love. Life is far too short to do otherwise.

Erik Hatcher

First, and really only, heartfelt thanks go to none other than Mike McCandless. He has pretty much single-handedly revised this book from its 1.0 release to the current spiffy “3.0” state. Mike approaches Lucene, this book, and life in general enthusiastically, with eagerness to tackle any task at hand. The first edition acknowledgments also very much apply here, as these influences are timelessly felt.

I personally thank Otis for his efforts with this book. Although we’ve yet to meet in person, Otis has been a joy to work with. He and I have gotten along well and have agreed on the structure and content on this book throughout. Thanks to Java Java in Charlottesville, Virginia, for keeping me wired and wireless; thanks, also, to Green-berry’s for staying open later than Java Java and keeping me out of trouble by not having internet access (update: they now have wi-fi, much to the dismay of my productivity). The people I’ve surrounded myself with enrich my life more than anything. David Smith has been a life-long mentor, and his brilliance continues to challenge me; he gave me lots of food for thought regarding Lucene visualization (most of which I’m still struggling to fully grasp, and I apologize that it didn’t make it into this manuscript). Jay Zimmerman and the No Fluff, Just Stuff symposium circuit have been dramatically influential for me. The regular NFJS speakers, including Dave Thomas, Stuart Halloway, James Duncan Davidson, Jason Hunter, Ted Neward, Ben Galbraith, Glenn Vanderburg, Venkat Subramaniam, Craig Walls, and Bruce Tate, have all been a great source of support and friendship. Rick Hightower and Nick Lesiecki deserve special mention: they both were instrumental in pushing me beyond the limits of my technical and communication abilities. Words do little to express the tireless enthusiasm and encouragement Mike Clark has given me throughout writing Lucene in Action. Technically, Mike contributed the JUnitPerf performance-testing examples, but his energy, ambition, and friendship were far more pivotal. I extend gratitude to Darden Solutions for working with me through my tiring book and travel schedule and allowing me to keep a low-stress part-time day job. A Darden co-worker, Dave Engler, provided the CellPhone skeleton Swing application that I’ve demonstrated at NFJS sessions and JavaOne; thanks, Dave! Other Darden coworkers, Andrew Shannon and Nick Skriloff, gave us insight into Verity, a competitive solution to using Lucene. Amy Moore provided graphical insight. My great friend Davie Murray patiently endured several revision requests for a figure he created. Daniel Steinberg is a personal friend and mentor, and he allowed me to air Lucene ideas as articles at java.net. Simon Galbraith, a great friend and now a search guru, and I had fun bouncing search ideas around in email.

Otis Gospodnetić

I hate cheesy acknowledgments, but I really can’t thank Margaret enough for being so supporting and patient with me. I owe her a lifetime supply of tea and rice. My parents Sanja and Vito opened my eyes early in my childhood by showing me as much of the world as they could, and that made a world of difference. They were also the ones who suggested I write my first book, which eliminated the fear of book-writing early in my life. Of course, I have to thank Doug Cutting, whose decision to open-source Lucene made a huge impact in my life, and to Michael McCandless for the amazing effort he has been putting into both Lucene in Action, Second Edition and Lucene. I think Mike actually has a few clones of him working 24/7 in his basement. No wonder I haven’t met him in person yet!