Preface: Our Contract with You, The Reader

Overview

In which we, the folks who make up Hentzenwerke Publishing, describe what you, the reader, can expect from this book and from us.

Hi there!

I ‚ ve been writing professionally (in other words, eventually getting a paycheck for my scribbles) since 1974, and writing about software development since 1992. As an author, I ‚ ve worked with a half- dozen different publishers and corresponded with thousands of readers over the years . As a software developer and all-around geek, I ‚ ve also acquired a library of more than 100 computer and software- related books.

Thus, when I donned the publisher ‚ s cap six years ago to produce the 1997 Developer ‚ s Guide, I had some pretty good ideas of what I liked (and didn ‚ t like) from publishers, what readers liked and didn ‚ t like, and what I, as a reader, liked and didn ‚ t like.

Now, with our new titles for 2004, we ‚ re in our seventh season. (For those who are keeping track, the ‚ 97 DevGuide was our first, albeit abbreviated, season , the batch of six ‚“Essentials ‚½ for Visual FoxPro 6.0 in 1999 was our second, and, in keeping with the sports analogy, the books we published in 2000 - 2004 comprise our third thru seventh.)

John Wooden, the famed UCLA basketball coach, posited that teams aren ‚ t consistent; they ‚ re always getting better ‚ or worse . We ‚ d like to get better ‚

One of my goals for each season is to build a closer relationship with you, the reader. In order for us to do this, you ‚ ve got to know what you should expect from us.

• You have the right to expect that your order will be processed quickly and correctly, and that your book will be delivered to you in new condition.

• You have the right to expect that the content of your book is technically accurate and up-to-date, that the explanations are clear, and that the layout is easy to read and follow without a lot of fluff or nonsense .

• You have the right to expect access to source code (if applicable for the book in question), errata, FAQs, and other information that ‚ s relevant to the book via our Web site.

• You have the right to expect an electronic version of your printed book to be available via our Web site.

• You have the right to expect that, if you report errors to us, your report will be responded to promptly, and that the appropriate notice will be included in the errata and/or FAQs for the book.

Naturally, there are some limits that we bump up against. There are humans involved, and they make mistakes. A book of 500 pages contains, on average, 150,000 words and several megabytes of source code. It ‚ s not possible to edit and re-edit multiple times to catch every last misspelling and typo, nor is it possible to test the source code on every permutation of development environment and operating system ‚ and still price the book affordably.

Once printed, bindings break, ink gets smeared, signatures get missed during binding. On the delivery side, Web sites go down, packages get lost in the mail.

Nonetheless, we ‚ ll make our best effort to correct these problems ‚ once you let us know about them.

In return, when you have a question or run into a problem, we ask that you first consult the errata and/or FAQs for your book on our Web site. If you don ‚ t find the answer there, please e-mail us at [e-mail] with as much information and detail as possible, including 1) the steps to reproduce the problem, 2) what happened , and 3) what you expected to happen, together with 4) any other relevant information.

I ‚ d like to stress that we need you to communicate questions and problems clearly. For example ‚

• ‚“Your downloads don ‚ t work ‚½ isn ‚ t enough information for us to help you. ‚“I get a 404 error when I click on the Download Source Code link on www.hentzenwerke.com/book/downloads.html ‚½ is something we can help you with.

• ‚“The code in Chapter 10 caused an error ‚½ again isn ‚ t enough information. ‚“I performed the following steps to run the source code program DisplayTest.PRG in Chapter 10, and I received an error that said ‚Variable m.liCounter not found ‚ ‚½ is something we can help you with.

We ‚ ll do our best to get back to you within a couple of days, either with an answer or at least an acknowledgment that we ‚ ve received your inquiry and that we ‚ re working on it.

On behalf of the authors, technical editors, copy editors, layout artists, graphical artists , indexers, and all the other folks who have worked to put this book in your hands, I ‚ d like to thank you for purchasing this book, and I hope that it will prove to be a valuable addition to your technical library. Please let us know what you think about this book ‚ we ‚ re looking forward to hearing from you.

As Groucho Marx once observed , ‚“Outside of a dog, a book is a man ‚ s best friend. Inside of a dog, it ‚ s too dark to read. ‚½

Whil Hentzen

Hentzenwerke Publishing
May 2004