First, I must thank my partners throughout the Rosetta development process, David Barton and Peter Ashenden. Their virtual fingerprints are everywhere in Rosetta. I have always admired Dave’s intellectual curiosity and benefited from his desired to explore new things. If nothing else, Dave introduced me to Haskell and opened up new worlds for exploration. As everyone in my discipline knows, Peter is a scholar and author in a class by himself. Peter enabled us to pull the crazy things we wanted Rosetta to be into something that now actually resembles a language. I am most proud to call both Peter and Dave my friends—everyone should be so lucky.

I must also thank my friend and mentor Philip A. Wilsey, who introduced me to hardware description languages, simulation, and the sheer joy of being a scholar; Praveen Chawla and all the folks at EDAptive Computing, who have stood by Rosetta through thick and thin; Denise Penrose and Kim Honjo at Morgan Kaufmann, who have kept me pointed in the right direction and have been exceptionally patient as Rosetta has come together over the past few years; Tim Johnson, Matt McClorey, and Keith Braman, who have kept me on the straight and narrow; all of my colleagues and ITTC and KU; members of the Rosetta Committee, who have spent their own personal time reviewing and commenting on Rosetta proposals; and finally, the reviewers who have contributed to this work, Roberto Passeron, University of Trento; Grant Martin, Tensilica; Darrell Barker, Air Force Research Laboratory; Shiu-Kai Chin, Syracuse University; Greg Peterson, University of Tennessee; and Gabe Moretti, Electronic Design News.

Oddly enough, I have never met many of the people I most need to thank. I am of course referring to the research community whose work forms the basis for all that we have done. In the bibliography, I have tried to cite important works that influenced Rosetta, although I am sure there are works that I overlooked or forgot. I thank all of the authors cited in the bibliography and apologize to anyone I may have missed.

I can’t imagine where I would be without the students I’ve worked with over the years at The University of Cincinnati and The University of Kansas. Special thanks to all of you—Garrin, Jeni, Nick, Phil, Mark, Justin, Wang, Brandon, Kalpesh, Murthy, Cindy, Roshan, Akki, Srini, Krishna, Makarand, Amit, Arun, Iqbal, Kshama, Murali, Sat, John, Phil, Liming, Tareq, and Raj.

I’ve dedicated this book to my Dad and I’m quite certain that no one understands why more than my Mom. Together they have spent a lifetime enabling the people around them to achieve their goals—my sister and me in particular. This is my definition of greatness and I will never know two finer people.

Saving the best for last, I must thank my wife Pam and my son Tate, who always pretend not to notice when I wander downstairs to my office. I have two wishes for my son—that he loves what he does as much as I love what I do, and that he loves who he chooses to spend his life with as much as I love Pam.