Acknowledgments

Writing this book was great, albeit tiring fun. The unique format of the “cookbook” is surprisingly rewarding, as it gives the author an unusual chance to create chapters filled with dense, practical examples that specifically deal with the issues raised by professional programmers. I look forward to finding out what recipes are the most useful—and what interesting techniques or tricks I might have overlooked.

I owe a heartfelt thanks to many individuals at Microsoft Press, including Danielle Voeller, who sold me on the idea of a cookbook, and Dick Brown, who guided it through the editorial process. Marc Young and Mark Bukovec provided the tech review for this book (along with many invaluable suggestions), and Lisa Pawlewicz added polish with her expert copyediting. I’m also indebted to the principal compositor Dan Latimer and electronic artist Joel Panchot, as well as numerous others at Microsoft Press who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that indexing, figures, and page setting were successful. In addition, I’d like to extend a special thanks to those individuals who contributed tips, insight, or tools that I used in creating the recipes in this book, including Lutz Roeder, Francesco Balena, Mike Krueger, Lance Olson, and many more. Any remaining mistakes or omissions are purely my own.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents (all four of them) and my loving wife.