Acknowledgments

Many people helped in the production of this book. First, I want to thank my editors, Mary O'Brien and Shelley Kronzek. Without Shelley's enthusiasm and encouragement, I don't think this project ever would have gotten off the ground. Without Mary's help and persistence, I might not have finished yet. To Chrysta Meadowbrooke, thank you very much for your excellent copyediting. I also want to thank the rest of the staff at Addison-Wesley, particularly Brenda Mulligan for her help in many small ways.

My thanks to my technical reviewers ”Eve Maler, Daniel K. Appelquist, Steve Vinoski, and Cameron Laird. Your candid comments helped make this a much better book. Innumerable thanks also to the Computer Science faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas, in particular to Dr. Lawrence Chung. Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And thanks to many professional colleagues too numerous to mention by name , but especially those from the XML Forum of the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council, ANSI ASC X12, the OASIS UBL Technical Committee, and the ebXML Working Group.

Finally, I want to thank my good wife, Diana, for her patience, support, and tolerance for my skewed priorities as I finished up this project.