Acknowledgments

Wow! It took a lot longer to get this book done than I thought it would. But there’s no way you would be holding it in your hands if it weren’t for the help, inspiration, and encouragement of all of the great folks behind the scenes.

First, I’d like to acknowledge the hard-working souls at Manning who miraculously turned my sloppily written manuscript into the fine piece of programming literature that is now before you: Marjan Bace, Mary Piergies, Cynthia Kane, Dottie Marsico, Karen Tegtmeyer, Leslie Haimes, Liz Welch, Gabriel Dobrescu, Ron Tomich, Kerri Bonasch, Jackie Carter, Frank Blackwell, Michael Stephens, and Benjamin Berg.

I’d also like to thank the reviewers who took the time to provide feedback and criticism needed to shape the book: Doug Warren, Olivier Jolly, Matthew Payne, Bill Fly, Jonathon Esterhazy, Philip Hallstrom, Mark Chaimungkalanont, Eric Raymond, Dan Allen, George M. Jempty, Mojahedul Hasanat, Vlad Kofman, Ashik Uzzaman, Norman Richards, Jeff Cunningham, Stuart Caborn, Patrick Dennis, Bas Vodde, and Michael Masters. In addition, Erik Weibust and Valentin Crettaz did a second technical review of the manuscript, just before it went to press.

Then there are those people who didn’t work on the book directly but had no less of an impact on me or on how this book turned out.

To my best friend, loving wife, and most beautiful woman in the world, Raymie. Thank you so much for your enduring patience another seemingly neverending book project. I’m sorry that it took so long. Now that it’s over, I owe you more flowers and date nights. And maybe some yard work.

My sweet and adorable little girls, Maisy and Madison: Thanks for your hugs and laughs and playtime that gave me a pleasant break from the book.

To Ryan Breidenbach, my coauthor on the first edition: Many thanks for helping me get this started and for your feedback on the second edition.

To the Spring team: No part of this book would be possible (or even necessary) without your vision and drive to create such an awesome framework. I’d especially like to thank Rod Johnson and Colin Sampaleanu for their comments on my blog and IM sessions that helped guide my thinking, as well as Arjen Poutsma for reviewing the Spring-WS chapter and keeping me in check.

To all of my coworkers over the past couple of years: I’ve learned many valuable things working alongside you and couldn’t thank you more for your professionalism, dedication, and friendship: Jeff Hanson, Jim Wallace, Don Beale, Van Panyanouvong, James Tikalsky, Ryan Breidenbach, Marianna Krupin, Tonji Zimmerman, Jeff Wellen, Chris Howard, Derek Lane, Tom McGraw, Greg Vaughn, Doug Warren, Jon West, Peter Presland-Byrne, Ravi Varanasi, Srinivasa Penubothu, Gary Edwards, Greg Helton, Jacob Orshalick, Valerie Crowley, Tyler Osborne, Stephanie Co, Maggie Zhuang, Tim Sporcic, William Johnson, John Moore, Brian Eschbach, Chris Morris, Dave Sims, Andy Cline, Bear Cahill, Greg Graham, and Paul Nelson.

A shout-out to all of my other friends, colleagues, fellow nerds, people I’ve met at conferences, members of my LinkedIn list, and those who bribed me to put their name in the acknowledgments: James Bell, Daniel Brookshier, Scott Davis, Ben Galbraith, Bill Fly, Justin Gehtland, Pete Gekas, Robert Gleaton, Stu Halloway, Erik Hatcher, Rick Hightower, Ramnivas Laddad, Guillaume Laforge, Crazy Bob Lee, Ted Neward, Matt Raible, Leo Ramirez, Arun Rao, Norman Richards, Chris Richardson, James Strachan, Bruce Tate, Glenn Vanderburg, Becca Wheeler, and Jay Zimmerman.

And finally, my endless gratitude to Jack Bauer...for saving the world, 24 hours at a time.