Several people contributed significantly to this book in one way or another, and I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to them.

Thanks to James Lumsden, Acquisition Editor at Packt Publishing, for making this book possible. Thanks to Amey Kanse, Development Editor, for guiding me throughout its writing; his advice was invaluable. Thanks to Leena Purkait, Project Coordinator, for keeping the book on schedule; she managed to do so despite my occasional bouts of inertia.

Thanks to Abhijeet Deobhakta, Editorial Team Leader, and to Priya Mukherjee, Project Team Leader, for overseeing the creation of this book.

Thanks to Tarun Singh, Technical Editor, for accommodating several last-minute changes to the manuscript without losing his cool. Thanks to Ajay Shankar, Copy Editor, for performing the unenviable task of correcting my grammar and to Andie Scothern for ably proofreading the final manuscript. Thanks go to Hemangini Bari for indexing the book. Thanks also go to Aparna Bhagat for designing the pretty cover as well as for the neat layout of the book.

Thanks go to Dave Wenning, Maarten van Stam, and Vivek Thangaswamy for painstakingly reviewing the manuscript; they caught my mistakes and made countless suggestions. Their hard work has kept me honest and helped me write a better book.

Finally, thanks go to three people who probably will never read this book. Thanks to my son Rohan and my daughter Ruhi for promising to buy it nevertheless. And thanks to my wife Minal for putting up with me and managing our family in spite of me while I wrote this book.

All these folks deserve as much credit for this book as I do.