Acknowledgments

There are so many people whom we wish to thank. First, we thank all those at Microsoft who allowed us to test the .NET Framework, explained their reasoning for building the framework as they did, listened to our feedback, and even modified the system to incorporate our wishes. Although we will accidentally omit many people ”and we are very sorry for that ”a non exhaustive list of these individuals would include the following: Nick Abbott, Ihab Abdelhalim, Chris Anderson, Eric Andrae, George Bosworth, Bryan Barnett, Jonathan Caves, Shuk Chan, Steve Christianson, Dennis Crain, Krzysztof Cwalina, Dan Fay, Kit George, Tony Goodhew, David Glance, Carl Grumbeck, Brian Grunkemeyer, Jonathan Hawkins, Mark Hall, Brain Harry, Anders Hejlsberg, Nick Hodapp, Jim Hogg, Rob Howard, Tom Kaiser, Loren Kohnfelder, Pranish Kumar, Ronald Laeremans, Sebastian Lange, Jason McConnell, Erik Meijer, Todd Merrell, Brad Merrill, Jim Miller, Oshoma Momoh, John Montgomery, Anthony Moore, Jon Nicponski, James Plamondon, Peter Plamondon, Susan Radke-Sproull, Jayanth Rajan, Craig Schertz, Don Syme, Clemens Szyperski, Peter Torr, Paul Vick, Scott Wiltamuth, and Eric Zinda.

To all our fellow Project 7 members , who actively participated at the Redmond Development Laboratories, thanks for your valuable insights. Again, a nonexhaustive list would include the following people: Gerry Butler, Chee Yeen Chan, Simon Cuce, John Daintree, Tyson Dowd, Jan Dubois, John Gough, J ¼rg Gutknecht, Fergus Henderson, Basim Kadhim, Leif Kornstaedt, Bertrand Meyer, Christine Mingins, Nick Nicoloudis, Nigel Perry, Paul Roe, David Simmons, Raphael Simon, Emmanuel Stapf, Pinku Surana, and Dean Thompson.

The reviewers of the book provided invaluable feedback and eliminated numerous errors from the book ”many thanks. We would like to especially express our appreciation to Martin Heller, Michi Henning, Jim Hogg, Laurie McGuire, Erik Meijer, Scott Meyers, Christophe Nasarre, Jeffrey Richter, and Purush Rudrakshala. All the remaining errors belong solely to the authors.

A very special thanks to all those who helped at Addison-Wesley, who turned our words into a book: Kristin Erickson, Jill Hobbs, Curt Johnson, Chris Kief, Debbie Lafferty, Chanda Leary-Coutu, Joan Murray, Robin O'Brien, Simone Payment, Stephane Thomas, and Katherine Tristaino.

Special mentions should also go to the Thai Kitchen and Kim Chi restaurants . Many perplexing issues have been resolved over fine lunches at these establishments.

Most of all we thank our families, who endured our absence and pre occupation for the last four years :

To my wife: Your love and support strengthen me; your proofreading saves my butt! Philippians 1:3

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”Brad

To my daughter , Sacha, who has to put up with her dad spending way too much time playing and working on his PC. To everyone at Dave's Jungle Bar, who ensure that I have a life other than computers. To my parents, Lee and John, and my brothers, Paul, Scott, and Jason, for allowing me to grow up in an environment that allowed me to become whatever I wanted. Thanks and love to you all.

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”Mark

To my wife, M ire, and our five children, Joseph, Jane, John, Leah, and Katherine, for putting up with all those weeks I spent away from you. Now that the book and the thesis are finished we should spend some time together! Love to you all.

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”Damien