Acknowledgments

ROLAND KUHN My first thanks go to Jamie, without whom I would not have dared take on this project. But my deepest gratitude is to Jonas Bonér, who created Akka, entrusted Akka to my care for many years, and supported me on every step along the way. I am also deeply thankful to Viktor Klang for countless rigorous discussions about all topics of life (and distributed systems) but, more importantly, for teaching me how to lead by example and how important it is to not let the devil over the bridge. Jonas, Viktor, and Patrik Nordwall also deserve special thanks for covering my duties as Akka Tech Lead while I took a mini-sabbatical of three months to work intensely on this book. I greatly appreciate Brian and Jamie stepping up and shouldering part of the tremendous weight of such a project: it is gratifying and motivating to work alongside such trusted companions.

For helpful reviews of the early manuscript, I would like to thank Sean Walsh and Duncan DeVore, as well as Bert Bates, who helped shape the overall arrangement of how the patterns are presented. I also thank Endre Varga, who spent considerable effort developing the KVStore exercise for Principles of Reactive Programming that forms the basis for the state replication code samples used in chapter 13. Thanks also go to Pablo Medina for helping me with the CKite example code in section 13.2, and to Thomas Lockney, technical proofreader, who kept a sharp eye out for errors. The following peer reviewers gave generously of their time: Joel Kotarski, Valentine Sinitsyn, Mark Elston, Miguel Eduardo Gil Biraud, William E. Wheeler, Jonathan Freeman, Franco Bulgarelli, Bryan Gilbert, Carlos Curotto, Andy Hicks, William Chan, Jacek Sokulski, Dr. Christian Bridge-Harrington, Satadru Roy, Richard Jepps, Sorbo Bagchi, NenkoTabakov, Martin Anlauf, Kolja Dummann, Gordon Fische, Sebastien Boisver, and Henrik Løvborg. I am grateful to the Akka community for being such a welcoming and fertile place for developing our understanding of distributed systems.

I would like to thank the team at Manning who made this book possible, especially Mike Stephens for nagging until I gave in, Jenny Stout for urging me to make progress, and Candace Gillhoolley from marketing. I would like to distinguish Ben Kovitz as an extremely careful and thorough copy editor, and I thank Tiffany Taylor for finding even more redundant words to be removed from the final text, as well as Katie Tennant for identifying and fixing unclear passages.

Finally, in the name of all readers, I extend my utmost appreciation and love to my wife, Alex. You endured my countless hours of spiritual absence with great compassion.

JAMIE ALLEN I wish to thank my wife, Yeon, and my three children, Sophie, Layla, and James. I am also grateful to Roland for allowing me to participate in this project, and to Brian for pushing the project over the finish line and contributing his expertise.

BRIAN HANAFEE I thank my wife, Patty, for supporting me, always, and my daughters, Yvonne and Barbara, for helping me with Doctor Who history and sometimes pretending my jokes are funny. Thank you, Susan Conant and Bert Bates, for getting me started and teaching me how to edit and teach in book form. Finally, thank you, Roland and Jamie, for showing me Reactive principles and welcoming me into this project.