Acknowledgments

This book project was possible largely because of the support, help, time, and generosity of many. My sincere thanks to everyone who gave his or her knowledge, time, and effort to help me improve this book, and along the way helped me to learn and improve as well.

Special thanks to Scott Davis, Suresh Iyer, Ben Rady, Brian Sam-Bodden, Nathaniel Schutta, Stefan Turalski, and Jim R. Wilson for their reviews. These kind developers and experts reviewed the book for technical correctness, identified gaps in my writing, and suggested ways to improve. Any errors that remain in the book are my own.

The alpha geeks who bought the beta of this book placed their trust in me and I am very thankful for that. Thanks to the readers who provided feedback through the book’s website, and to early readers Richard L. Brownrigg, George S. Cowan, Brett DiFrischia, Carsten Hess, Richard Hoggart, and Felipe Sultani for taking the time to make this book better.

I had the luxury of teasing out many of the topics presented in this book at conference presentations, in front of live audiences. The No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS)^[1] conference series, in particular, generously gave me the platform to present different topics related to this book for a couple of years before I started writing. Many thanks to Jay Zimmerman, the director of NFJS, for his continued support.

Writing a book has ups and downs, and the editor can make or break the project. In spite of various challenges along the way, Jackie Carter tirelessly worked on this book to get it in its current shape. I thank her for the positive feedback when she found the writing was good and her guidance in places where improvements were needed.

Thanks to Andy Hunt and the entire Pragmatic Bookshelf team, many who work behind the scenes, for taking on this book project and their continued effort to get it to fruition.

Knowing very well that asking, “Did the code you were trying last night work?” will start a long rant and a demo, a tireless soul kept asking that question and continued to motivate me. Without her help, none of this would have been possible or even matter—thank you, Kavitha. Also thanks to my sons Karthik and Krupa for their understanding when Dad had to hide to work on the book.