Acknowledgements

Thank you, Manning, for helping me publish my first book.

I want to give special thanks to Mike Stephens for taking the chance by getting me on board. Thank you, Helen Stergius, for working with me during the whole process. Thank you, Alain Couniot, for the great technical reviews of my chapters; it’s not an easy job to keep pointing out errors and possible improvements; still, I greatly appreciate it. And I also want to thank Alexander Pawlicki for his creative cartoon illustrations used throughout the book.

Also thank you to the rest of the Manning team: Aleksandar Dragosavljević, Candace Gillhoolley, Ana Romac, Cheryl Weisman, Deirdre Hiam, Dottie Marsico, Nichole Beard, Mary Piergies, Carol Shields, Darren Meiss, Melody Dolab, and Marija Tudor.

I want to give special thanks to friends, coworkers, and others who have been my guinea pigs and reviewed (parts of) the book: Bart den Hollander, Dimitar Gyurov, Dario de Rosa, Rein Spijkerman, Janina Kutyn, Sidney de Koning, Torben Schulz, and Edwin Chun Wing Kwok.

Also, I would like to thank the other reviewers: Alessandro Campeis, Ali Naqvi, Axel Roest, David Jacobs, Gustavo Gomes, Helmut Reiterer, Jason Pike, John Montgomery, Kent R. Spillner, Lars Petersen, Marcelo Pires, Marco Giuseppe Salafia, Martin Philp, Monica Guimaraes, Patrick Regan, Tyler Slater, and Weyert de Boer.

I knew writing a book was tough, but it was much harder than I imagined it to be. My fiancée Jenika and I just had a baby daughter, and it was quite the struggle to start a new family, have sleepless nights, maintain a full-time job, and write a programming book in a second language. I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t love writing this book while having the support of my fiancée. Thank you, Jenika, for being so patient with me.