Acknowledgments

Thanks to my long-suffering partner, Gillian, for enduring a year of lost weekends, late nights, and generally having a sullen and distracted boyfriend who woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having had another nightmare about character encodings. Who knew writing a book could be so stressful?

Many thanks to Alessandro Bahgat, Paul Battley, Jacob Chae, Peter Cooper, Iris Faraway, Kevin Gisi, Derek Graham, James Edward Gray II, Avdi Grimm, Hajba Gábor László, Jeremy Hinegardner, Kerri Miller, and Drew Neil for their helpful technical review comments, questions, and suggestions—all of which shaped this book for the better.

Thanks to Rob Griffiths, Mark Rogerson, Samuel Ryzycki, David Webb, Lewis Wilkinson, Alex Windett, and Mike Wright for ensuring there was no chance I got too big for my football boots.

Finally, the amazing folks at Pragmatic. Thanks to Susannah Davidson Pfalzer for taking a chance on me and my daft idea. Thanks to Jackie Carter for her incredible patience in guiding a first-time author through the editing process, and for contributing much to the structure and readability of the book. And thanks to Andy and Dave for creating a truly brilliant publisher that I’m proud to be even a tiny a part of.