Acknowledgments

Before you put your hands on this book, it was touched by many other hands—hands that edited it, reviewed it, proofread it, and managed the whole publishing process. You wouldn’t be reading this book if it weren’t for all those hands.

First, I’d like to thank everyone at Manning for working hard, pressuring me to get this darn thing done, and for doing their part to make sure that this book is the best it could be: Marjan Bace, Michael Stephens, Christina Rudloff, Karen Tegtmeyer, Maureen Spencer, Mary Piergies, Sebastian Stirling, Benjamin Berg, Katie Tennant, Janet Vail, and Dottie Marsico.

Along the way, a handful of other people were given the opportunity to read the manuscript in its roughest form and provide feedback, telling me what I got right and (gasp) where I missed the mark. Many thanks to all of those reviewers for their valuable feedback: Valentin Crettaz, Jeff Addison, John Ryan, Olivier Nouguier, Joshua White, Deiveehan Nallazhagappan, Adam Taft, Peter Pavlovich, Mykel Alvis, Rick Wagner, Patrick Steger, Josh Devins, Dan Alford, Alberto Lagna, Dan Dobrin, Robert Hanson, Chad Davis, Carol McDonald, Deepak Vohra, and Robert O’Connor. And a special thanks to Doug Warren for taking on the role of technical reviewer and going over the technical details of the book with a fine-toothed comb.

My gratitude is also due to those who played no direct part in producing the book, but were there providing support, friendship, good conversation, and making sure that I had adequate breaks from writing to do other things.

First and foremost, thanks to my wife Raymie. You’re my best friend, the love of my life, and the reason for everything I do. I love you very much. Thank you for putting up with another writing project and for supporting me.

To Maisy and Madi, my little princesses, thank you for your hugs, laughs, imagination, and the occasional Mario Kart breaks.

To my colleagues at SpringSource, thank you for continuing to revolutionize how we develop software and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of what you do. Special thanks to the two SpringSourcers I work with every day, Keith Donald and Roy Clarkson—we’ve done some awesome stuff in the past year and I look forward to the amazing things that lie ahead.

Many thanks to my No Fluff/Just Stuff cohorts for reminding me every few weekends that I’m not nearly as smart as you guys: Ted Neward, Venkat Subramaniam, Tim Berglund, Matthew McCullough, Matt Stine, Brian Goetz, Jeff Brown, Dave Klein, Ken Sipe, Nathaniel Schutta, Neal Ford, Pratik Patel, Rohit Bhardwaj, Scott Davis, Mark Richards, and of course, Jay Zimmerman.

Finally, there are many other folks out there that I’d like to send a shout out to for their part in shaping me, my career, and this book: Ryan Breidenbach, Ben Rady, Mike Nash, Matt Smith, John Woodward, Greg Vaughn, Barry Rogers, Paul Holser, Derek Lane, Erik Weibust, and Andrew Rubalcaba.