Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and give proper thanks to those individuals who in no small part, due to their patience and consideration, contributed to the writing of this book. In addition, there are readers, proofers, and contributors whom we acknowledge at the end of this section.

First and foremost—apart from the irreplaceable contributions and support of those to whom this book is dedicated—we want to acknowledge each other. Working together in such a pressured way and still spending more time laughing than anything else is a feat in itself. Without figuring out each other's varied ways and memes, this book would never have gotten under way. Following that, we each have our own “cast of heroes” to thank.

John Robert thanks those loved ones, friends, and colleagues who have provided much support: Dale Leeser; the Ferntheils; Jeff Leeser; Jay Semel and the great team at the University of Iowa's Obermann Center for Advanced Studies for providing the research base where this book could begin; Michael Witzel at Harvard for providing texts and challenges which made XSLT important early on; Leslie Sims and Mary Sue Coleman; Moya and Jonathan for being so kind and cool; Dr. Mikhail Gorokhov of Atlanta for a revolutionary treatment of therapy and non-narcotic pain relief for tired and sore hands; the gang at Emory University's Center for Electronic Texts in Theology and Religion from ATLA-especially John Wagner for making us prove XSLT was necessary to a relational database world; John Bagby, Russell and Elaine at UAQA.com; Deborah Norris; and Nichiren Nietszche Daishonin for tolerance and his own brand of support.

Practically speaking, the support of Sun Microsystems, specifically from Steven Butler and Karsten Riemer, proved make-or-break in allowing the time and focus to write properly. While finishing and proofing, the fine spirits, food, and folk at the Red Rock Bistro in Swampscott, MA, were both delightful and indispensable, and Ohio's Golden Lamb Inn.

Zarella would personally like to thank Sharon Adler, Carla Corkern, Ellen Campbell, Charles Goldfarb, G. Ken Holman, Steven Newcomb, Paul Prescod, and Jeremy Richman for all their contributions, suggestions, and support. Also a special thanks to all family and friends for their support and encouragement.

Thanks also to the team at ISOGEN for their support and contributions.

Readers and Contributors

Thanks to David Bertoni and David Marston of IBM/Lotus; Sharon Adler at IBM; Norm Walsh, David Hoffert, Donald Kerr, Marc Cannava, Caron Newman, Floyd Jones, and Scott Hudson of Sun Microsystems; Jonathan Marsh of Microsoft; Steve Muench of Oracle; Michael Kay of Software AG; Eric Lawson of ISOGEN; G. Ken Holman of Crane Softwrights, Ltd,.

Thanks to Jeni Tennison for her work on the Muenchian key() function; Oren Ben-Kiki for his offering on the unique use of XSLT to solve the classic N-Queens puzzle from the artificial intelligence community; and Eric Lawson, of ISOGEN, for providing a test GUI for Xalan-J.

Special thanks to the members of the W3C XSL working group for their contributions, especially Sharon Adler, Scott Boag, Michael Kay, Bob Lojek, Jonathan Marsh, Steve Muench, Norm Walsh, and of course, James Clark for making it all work.

We also extend our thanks to Deborah Norris for her work preparing the final graphics in this book.

A very special thanks goes to the patient, knowledgeable, and versatile team at Prentice Hall for their support and eagle-eyed proofing: Mark Taub, Donna Cullen-Dolce, Carol Lallier, and Camie Goffi.