Acknowledgments

I am very grateful for the help that I received while writing this book. In January 2004, when I read Jesse James Garrett's now famous article describing and coining the term Ajax, I felt that it was the start of a revolution in web development. Although some very innovative developers had already begun using Ajaxian techniques for a richer web experience, the movement really moved from a smoldering potential into a raging fire after early 2004. I am grateful to the army of developers who have crafted such frameworks as DWR (Joe Walker), Dojo, Rico (Richard Cowen, Bill Scott, Darren James), and Scriptaculous (Thomas Fuchs). Also, thanks to the Google Web Toolkit team and Ed Burns, Greg Murray, and Tor Norbye for their work on JavaServer Faces and Ajax.

Many evangelists have helped the movement as well. One site that has been a great source of information is Ajaxian.com, run by Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer. Thanks to this site, much information and help for developers is available.

My editor, Mike Loukides, has been a huge help in this effort. Mike helped make many difficult subjects easy and turned some of my cryptic sentences into readable, understandable prose. He has been an invaluable resource.

The reviewers for this book have also been very helpful. Michael Davis examined much of the code and helped identify problems. David Lakis helped with the flow and helped make sure that the content was readable. Vimal Kansal reviewed many of the technical details.

Finally, I'm grateful to my family for putting up with me throughout this project. I'd like to thank my kids: Jordan, Erik, Stefani, Matthew, and Kyra. I couldn't have done this without the help and support of my wife, Erin; my thanks and love go especially to her.

Steven Douglas Olson

November 2006