Acknowledgments

No book can be published by the author alone, and I am extremely grateful for the multitude of people who helped me with this one. The order in which I thank people is not significant, except for those who come first. By far, my family has made the biggest sacrifice to allow me to complete this project. Benjamin, Hanna, and Abigail often had a daddy distracted by this book, but Elisabeth suffered even more so. She was often left to take care of things, holding the family’s world together on her own. I would like to say it got easier with each edition but, alas, no: As the kids got older, life became more hectic, and without me Elisabeth was stretched to the breaking point almost all the time. A huge “Sorry” and ginormous “Thank You!”

Many technical editors reviewed each chapter in minute detail to ensure technical accuracy. I was often amazed by the subtle errors these folks managed to catch: Paul Bramsman, Kody Brown, Ian Davis, Doug Dechow, Gerard Frantz, Thomas Heavey, Anson Horton, Brian Jones, Shane Kercheval, Angelika Langer, Eric Lippert, John Michaelis, Jason Morse, Nicholas Paldino, Jon Skeet, Michael Stokesbary, Robert Stokesbary, John Timney, and Stephen Toub.

Eric is no less than amazing. His grasp of the C# vocabulary is truly astounding, and I am very appreciative of his edits, especially when he pushed for perfection in terminology. His improvements to the C# 3.0 chapters were incredibly significant, and in the second edition my only regret was that I didn’t have him review all the chapters. However, that regret no longer continues to fester. Eric has painstakingly reviewed every Essential C# chapter with amazing detail and precision. I am extremely grateful for his contribution to making this book even better than the first two editions. Thanks, Eric! I can’t imagine anyone better for the job. You deserve all the credit for raising the bar from good to great.

Similar to the case with Eric and C#, there are only a handful of people who know .NET multithreading as well as Stephen Toub. Accordingly, Stephen focused on the two (rewritten for a third time) multithreading chapters and their new focus on async support in C# 5.0. Thanks, Stephen!

Thanks to everyone at Addison-Wesley for their patience in working with me in spite of my occasional tendency to focus on everything else except the manuscript. Thanks to Vicki Rowland, Ellie Bru, Curt Johnson, and Joan Murray. Joan deserves a special medal for her patience given the number of times I delayed not only providing deliverables but even responding to emails. Vicki is no less than amazing in her ability to work with technical authors. I was so appreciative of the updated, fully stylized manuscripts she provided following the Essential C# 5.0 publication. It made writing Essential C# 6.0 so much easier than my updates of the prior editions.

Thanks also to Mads Torgersen, for his willingness to write the Foreword. Even if only half of what he says is true, I am greatly honored.