No book is the work of a single person, and this one, with its focus on collaboration and the collective enterprise, has been an appropriately collaborative effort from the start. The book owes its existence to the columns I wrote, which exist because of the persistence and vision of my editors, Larry O'Brien and Marie Lenzie. Larry seduced me into the world of regular deadlines by offering me the prime real estate of Computer Language Magazine to write about whatever interested me. Marie plugged me into Object Magazine as a people-oriented misfit among a stable of process and technology mavens. Both Larry and Marie have been not only good editors but also good friends over the years. Larry was abetted by a succession of talented and long-suffering people at Miller Freeman Publications—including Gretchen Bay, Nicole Freeman, Michele Gahee, and Nicole Claro—who coped with my convoluted constructions and suffered my sometimes insufferable e-mail lectures.

To Paul Petralia, my editor at Prentice Hall, go my thanks for the enthusiasm with which he helped breathe new life into an old project. For adding the final polish of professionalism to the manuscript, I am grateful for the hard work of Mary Sudul, production editor for this edition, and Harriet Tellem, who contributed so much to the first edition.

To the list of all those editors who have helped along the way, I would add my best critic and advisor, Lucy Lockwood. My partner in both life and business, Lucy is usually the first to read anything I create and the first to recognize when my writing soars and when it sinks. Thanks Lucy. Thanks all.