0.5 A Word on Source Code Examples

First things first. All the source code in this book is hereby released to the public domain. You can use it however you like, without restriction. You can include it in free software, or in commercial/proprietary projects. Change it to your heart's content, and in any manner you want. If you feel like giving credit to the author (or sending him large checks) for code you find useful, that is fine but no obligation to do so exists.

All the source code in this book, and various other public domain examples, can be found at the book's Web site. If such an electronic form is more convenient for you, we hope this helps you. In fact, if you are able, you might benefit from visiting this location, where you might find updated versions of examples or other useful utilities not mentioned in the book.

First things out of the way, let us turn to second things. Little of the source code in this book is intended as a final say on how to perform a given task. Many of the examples are easy enough to copy directly into your own program, or to use as standalone utilities. But the real goal in presenting the examples is educational. We really hope you will think about what the examples do, and why they do it the way they do. In fact, we hope readers will think of better, faster, and more general ways of performing the same tasks. If the examples work their best, they should be better as inspirations than as instructions.