I'm not going to lie to you. The Acknowledgments section of the book is a scary proposition for me. The notion that I (or anyone) could quantify, or prioritize, the contributions (direct and indirect) by which this book was made possible is fantasy. I'll do my best, but it's entirely possible I'll forget somebody, and for that, I apologize beforehand.

I thank my wife Richelle for her eternal patience, indulgence, wisdom, support, and love. I thank my parents—my mother and father and their spouses, as well as my in-laws—for their influences, their grace, their support, and their love.

I thank my coauthors Gary Mak and Daniel Rubio, who helped make this the most exciting book I've ever read, let alone worked on!

I thank the amazing editors: Steve Anglin, Laurin Becker, Tom Welsh, Manuel Jordan, Mario Gray, and Greg Turnquist. They ensured the highest standards in quality at every step of the way of the process and with the utmost professionalism. I thank Greg Turnquist, in particular, for his help on this book. He provided critical feedback during the process. He's a SpringSource engineer and the lead of the Spring Python project, which delivers a Pythonic port of the Spring framework for use with Python. He's got a book coming out, Manning's Spring Python in Action, which should prove a very, very interesting read.

I thank Mark Fisher, the lead of the Spring Integration project. I like the Spring Integration project because it, like the core framework, solves a very complex problem domain with elegance. Impossible problems become difficult; difficult problems become trivial. I owe him a debt of gratitude for the framework and for his indulgence, enthusiasm, and support for my contributions to the project. I also thank him for his kindness.

I am an editor for InfoQ.com. This book represents a year of utterly unpredictable schedules, hectic deadlines, and hard work. The team at InfoQ.com has been more than gracious about my erratic schedule. I thank Floyd Marinescu, Charles Humble, and Ryan Slobojan, and InfoQ.com, for raising the bar on technical journalism and for the endless support and inspiration.

Finally, I'd like to thank my colleagues at Shopzilla. At the time of this writing, I am in a state of transition, leaving Shopzilla to join SpringSource. Shopzilla is easily the most fantastic company I've had the privilege of working for. It is full of amazing people. I learned something everyday and enjoyed a camaraderie I've never felt in a company before. The engineering culture is strong, and an inspired engineer couldn't ask for a better place to work. The results are amazing. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to work with many amazing people, which makes narrowing down the following list particularly difficult. I thank Tim Morrow, Rodney Barlow, Andy Chan, Rob Roland, Paul Snively, Phil Dixon, and Jody Mulkey for their guidance, friendship, and support.

–Josh Long

First off, I thank my coauthors. Gary Mark created this book's first edition, providing it with rock-solid content, making it one of the best selling books in the Spring and Java category. And Josh Long spearheaded the Spring Enterprise Recipes book, which is now tightly integrated and upgraded with this newly minted second edition of Spring Recipes.

Next, thanks to everyone at Apress. Steve Anglin, Matt Moodie, and Tom Welsh were there through every step of this book's life cycle, from structuring its table of contents to reading every page. Laurin Becker served as project manager and kept all the pieces together, making sure everyone turned in work on time. And of course, every other person at Apress who had a role in this book and with whom I didn't have the opportunity to interact directly, including the copy editor, proofreader, and cover designer, among others.

On the technical front and for helping me keep the content accurate, special thanks go Manuel Jordan, who served as the book's technical reviewer, as well as Mario Gray, who also took part in the technical review process.

In addition, the content of the book would also not be possible were it not for the many articles, documentation, and blog posts I read from many people that shape Spring and Grails; these include Arjen Poutsma, Juergen Hoeller, Alef Arendsen, and Graeme Rocher. And of course, I thanks the many other active people in these areas who have surely influenced my thought process and who I, unfortunately, can't give credit by name due to space constraints.

And finally, I thank my family and friends. Since I had already bewildered them with writing projects, their long blank stares after I tried to explain this book's purpose in layman's terms were a testament to their patience. Yet, even through these stares, they managed to ask some serious questions that kept me upbeat. So to everyone who simply asked, thank you; I consider you much a part of this effort for providing face-to-face morale support.

—Daniel Rubio