Acknowledgments

It is a common misconception that a book is written solely by the author. In reality, a book is a collaboration of many different people.

First of all, I want to thank all the folks at Sams Publishing for their support and guidance of a first-time author. Elizabeth Finney, my project editor, was a huge help in working to coordinate both the author review process and the technical revisions. Amy Patton, the team coordinator , for organizing many things behind the scenes that greatly improved the quality of this book (and might have saved my sanity ). Thanks to Jeff Schultz, for giving me the opportunity to write this book. Shelley Johnston, my acquisitions editor, for her enthusiasm and support. Scott Meyers, my development editor, for helping me develop the concept of the book and then overseeing the whole process. Mike Henry, my copy editor; thank you for transforming my writing into coherent English (no small task). Mark Taber, the associate publisher, who extended the publication deadline in order to have an additional technical edit process. Katie Robinson, the formatter, had the daunting task of converting my messy files to Sams' formatting system.

This book had six technical editors who helped shield you from errors. They all worked quite hard, testing every piece of code in the book to make sure that it was of the highest quality possible. Patrick Lambert reviewed the entire manuscript and gave many valuable comments. Chris Newman, Kenneth J. Kloeppel, Mark Maslakowski, Brian Schaffner, and Ken Jenks all performed technical edits on different portions of the manuscript. Both Chris Newman and Kenneth J. Kloeppel went far beyond the call of duty.

In addition to the technical editors, this book had five technical reviewers who read the book over for accuracy and style. Zak Greant, Florian Lanthaler, and Sebastian Bergmann all reviewed the entire manuscript and gave me many valuable comments. Jannis Hermanns and Landon Bradshaw each reviewed different portions of the manuscript. Both Zak Greant and Florian Lanthaler deserve special mention: Their reviews were more detailed than I could have hoped for from a technical reviewer.

I'd especially like to thank Andrei Zmievski, for without his invaluable work, this book would not be what it is today. His expertise in PHP is truly unparalleled.

I would like to give special thanks to Rasmus Lerdorf, who not only created PHP in the first place, but also found time in his busy schedule to write the foreword for this book.

Thank you to all the people who have dedicated their time to the improvement of PHP. The PHP Group , Development team, Documentation team, Quality Assurance team, and everyone else who offers support for PHP either by writing books, authoring articles, teaching friends or spending way too much time on IRC. Without your many hours of hard work, this book could have never been.

Many thanks are also due to my teachers and my friends for their patience and understanding while I obsessed over this book.

My family is my center and my base. I could never have had the strength to author this book without them being a constant source of support. I love you all very much. A special thanks should go to my nanoo and grandpa, who have always stressed the importance of education and taught me to appreciate many of the finer things in life.

The last person I must thank is someone for whom I can't very well express my gratitude in words, my mother. Mom, you not only gave me life, but also kept my life running while I wrote this book. I love you.

”Sterling

I owe thanks to everyone who is involved in the PHP project, including the PHP core group, documentation team, Quality Assurance Team, and all the other developers who dedicate hours of their time to making PHP the best that it can be. Special thanks to Rasmus Lerdorf for getting me on this wild ride.

Additionally, Monte Ohrt, Eric Elliott, Luc Suryo, and David Hahn should be praised for making ispi a great place to work. Their comments and support proved invaluable.

I would also like to thank all the people at Sams Publishing who helped this book see the light of the day, especially Shelley Johnston and Amy Patton.

Most of all, thanks to my parents.

”Andrei