Acknowledgments

I want to thank Neil Rowe, Brook Farling, and all at Sams Publishing for another great experience of working together. Writing a book like this is a very hard work, but working with people like you makes things easier. Thanks!

My deep, special thanks go to Beth Massi from the LightSwitch team at Microsoft. As the technical editor of this book, Beth worked with a great passion and attention through what I wrote and provided great suggestions about what readers needed to know, all the while sharing her real-world experience. From her contribution to this book, I’ve learned more about LightSwitch than I could have ever learned on my own. LightSwitch developers should always remember her words: “In LightSwitch, the only code you write is the only code you could write, the business logic.” You are a great part of this success, Beth.

My thanks go, as well, to the whole Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch team for all the amazing and important technical discussions we’ve had. In particular, I want to thank John Stallo, who always answered my technical questions with great care and attention; Joe Binder, for his helpful suggestions about custom shells; Michael Eng, for important discussions about integrating LightSwitch with Team Foundation Server 2010; Karol Zadora-Przylecki and Eric Erhardt, whose explanations about threading and shells have been so important. This is a great team, and I have learned a lot from all of you.

A special mention goes to my friend Michael Washington, Silverlight MVP and one of the foremost experts on LightSwitch in the world. He never tires of helping the LightSwitch developer community. We shared many interesting technical discussions, but most important, Michael has in mind the noblest meaning of the word community. Many thanks, Michael.

Many thanks to Mei Liang and Lisa Feigenbaum at Microsoft, who are passionate about their jobs. They have been very helpful to me, especially in connecting with the right people for information.

There are moments in which you get tired of sleepless nights, and good words from a special friend are always important, no matter how many times you see or talk on the phone with them. So, Nicolle Prosser and Karin Meier, thank you!

Thanks to Alfonso Ghiraldini and Francesco Bosticco for their cordiality.

Great thanks also to the Italian subsidiary of Microsoft, which always encourages my community contributions and important works like this. My special thanks to my MVP lead Alessandro Teglia, who always does his job with an uncommon passion.

I would like to thank my everyday friends, who are always ready to encourage me and who share my happiness for my technical successes, even if they are not techies. So, thanks from the bottom of my heart to Roberto Bianchi, Alessandro Ardovini, Francesca Bongiorni, Paolo Leoni, Leonardo Amici, and Sara Gerevini. You are my second family, and I love you all.

Back in August 2010, I and some other fellow MVPs co-founded the one and only Italian community about Visual Studio LightSwitch, called LightSwitch Tips & Tricks (www.lightswitch.it). This has been an opportunity to share discussions on the product and learn something new every day. So, thanks to my fellow Microsoft MVPs Diego Cattaruzza, Renato Marzaro, and Antonio Catucci, but also to my great friend Marco Notari, and to all of you readers who trusted me by purchasing this book and who come to read my blog or my articles daily.