Acknowledgments

There were literally dozens of individuals who worked to make this book as valuable as possible. Each of them deserves a personal thank you from us, as well as the readers. There are some individuals who selflessly provided content that was instrumental in the creation of this book. These individuals are:

• Alexey Gavrilov— Alexey created the invaluable http://www.bubblemark.com website that compares a variety of web-focused frameworks. We’d like to thank him for his efforts involved in creating this site and allowing us to use it within chapter 1 of this book.
• Ashish Shetty— Ashish is a program manager at Microsoft who took on the important task of writing the foreword for this book. In addition, he helped us ensure that this book was consistent with the Silverlight 2 SDK. Thank you, Ashish!
• Dan “Disco” Herrenbruck— Dan created, produced, and edited most of the video footage used in this book. Dan is growing into a seasoned and skilled producer in film and television. He’s starting his own video production company called simple text. Thank you for helping us deliver a dynamic book for a dynamic platform!
• Ed Maia— Ed is a program manager at Microsoft who willingly shared information related to the media features of Silverlight 2. His assistance was crucial in telling the story of the rich media features found in Silverlight 2. Thank you very much, Ed!
• Michael Foord— Michael and Christian Muirhead have written IronPython in Action. Michael provided valuable assistance in the DLR-related information in chapter 11. Thank you, Michael, for helping us make this content as accurate as possible.
• Mike Harsh— Mike is a program manager on the Silverlight team at Microsoft. His blogging efforts during the early days of Silverlight helped keep early adopters like Chad motivated. Mike was also extremely helpful in answering some of the finer technical details presented in this book. Thanks, Mike!
• Tim Binkley-Jones— Tim was extremely valuable in the finalization of this book. His experience and passion for technologies such as Silverlight and WPF helped make this book what is it is. He readily provided deep and insightful feedback while technically proofreading this manuscript.

This book wouldn’t be what it is without the help of these individuals. In addition, a large number of individuals contributed in many other ways. A lot of these folks contributed anonymously as reviewers. To them, we’re grateful for their open and honest feedback. The reviewers we can thank by name are listed here: David Barkol, Aleksy Nudelman, Rama Krisha Vavilala, Darren Neimke, Anil Radhakrisha, Mark Monster, Christopher Haupt, Berndt Hamboek, Curt Christianson, Massimo Perga, Gustavo Cavalcanti, Andrew Siemer, Keith Farmer, Larry Clarkin, Dave Campbell, Calvin Schrotenboer, Dave Corun, Frank Wang, Nishant Sivakumar, Valentin Stoychev, and Fani Kondova.

In addition, there were numerous editors and proofreaders at Manning Publications who deserve a great deal of thanks for their help and endurance. These individuals include Andrea Kaucher, Cynthia Kane, Elizabeth Martin, Mary Piergies, Maureen Spencer, Megan Yockey, Michael Stephens, Nermina Miller, and Steven Hong. And finally, special thanks to Ben Hayat.

Personal thanks

In addition to the individuals who helped us with the book itself, there are those that have been a big part of Chad’s and John’s lives beyond the book.

Chad would like to thank a variety of his closest friends and family. First and foremost, Chad would like to thank his girlfriend Rachel Tolbert. Rachel’s patience, support, and calming attitude helped Chad endure the challenges of this book. Chad would also like to thank his family, particularly his parents Tim and Bobbie, for their continued care and support.

Additionally, Chad would like to directly thank several of his friends. This list of individuals is incomplete. But, certain individuals often provided new perspectives that were valuable additions to this book. These additions came either directly or indirectly from Aaron Brunner, Aaron Mitchell, Ben Phillips, BJ Murphy, Brad Stayte, Bryan Phillips, Chad Hamilton, Dan Rigsby, Matt Anderson, Matt Henkler, and Ryan Redding. These individuals impacted this book whether or not they knew it. Another individual and new friend did directly impact this book. His name is John Stockton.

John would like to thank his loving wife Kristi for the patience and support while he worked many late nights, his son John Ross for the needed mental breaks from the book, and the Cleveland development community for the encouragement and confidence to undertake a task this large.

Naturally, we’d both like to thank our readers. Without an audience, this book would be little more than a doorstop.