Acknowledgments

I l @ ve RuBoard

This is the second book I have written for Microsoft Press. In the acknowledgments in my first book ( Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step By Step ) I said I had not realized how much work was involved in authoring a book. When I set out on the long-running project that was this volume, I thought I had a better idea of the effort that would be required. Boy, was I ever wrong! The late nights, frustrations, tears, and ultimate feelings of elation were only the beginning ”eventually I had to leave the night club, come home, and start writing. Suffice to say that without the unstinting efforts of my coauthor and friend Andy Longshaw, as well as my long-suffering project manager at Content Master, Suzanne Carlino, this book would never have made it. It would also be very remiss of me not to thank the editorial team at Microsoft Press for their sterling work and incredible patience with my usual collection of poor spellings, grammatical errors, and tendency to write stuff that would get me sued if left uncorrected! So, my heartfelt appreciation must also go to Marzena Makuta, Ina Chang, Kathleen Atkins, and Barbara Moreland at Microsoft Press, and Debi Mishra of the product group .

Finally, as ever, the last word must go to my family: to Diana who thinks I am insane but still loves me; to James, who keeps asking me when I am going to get a proper job; and to Frankie, who still gets all embarrassed when I walk her to school.

I nearly forgot . Up the Gills!

John Sharp

July 2002

John says all of the nice things in his acknowledgments, so I'd just like to reiterate his thanks to all of the people at Content Master and Microsoft who have made this book possible. I'd also like to thank John for his help in talking through issues and the incredible amount of in-depth knowledge he brings to bear on the issues that had me tearing my hair out. Alex Mackman, Simon Horrell and the VSJ champs also deserve a mention for their help in answering tricky .NET and J# questions. My contributions to this book have been made far better by my coworkers on the CSD project who have posed real-world questions and challenged me to answer them using the .NET Framework. Their insights have also helped me understand the .NET Framework better and have stimulated me to question some of my assumptions, so thanks go to Matt, Tony, Ian, Anup, Dave S., Jon, Henry, Rachael, Dee, Barry, Richard R. and the rest of the team for their questions and opinions , and to Dave de Naeyer for having confidence in me. My sympathy as ever goes to my family who put up with the inevitable mood swings that accompany writing software that pushes at the boundaries of a platform so that you can see how things really work.

Andy Longshaw

July 2002

I l @ ve RuBoard