Acknowledgments

Writing a book always requires a substantial commitment of time and effort, and for that we are grateful to our spouses and families for their support in helping to bring this project through to completion. Steve would like to thank Donna; Ron would like to thank Vanessa, Sean and Ami; and Paul would like to thank Deb, Russel, and Victoria.

In commemorating the tenth anniversary of Visual Basic, we would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the designers and developers who transformed Visual Basic from an idea into a reality. Truly, it has been a monumental accomplishment that has transformed the way in which applications are created.

We'd also like to thank the book's technical reviewers, Daniel Creeron, Budi Kurniawan, and Matt Childs, for their thoughtful, careful reviews of our work. We'd also like to thank Alan Carter, Chris Dias, Amanda Silver, and Sam Spencer at Microsoft for their help in answering our annoying questions and for reviewing portions of the manuscript.

The on-line Visual Studio .NET edition of this book was made possible by the work of many individuals. Mike Sierra of O'Reilly converted the Language Reference to Microsoft Help 2.0 format and did the work necessary to make its content available through the Visual Studio .NET dynamic help system. Kipper York, Shane McRoberts, and Etka Mittal of the Microsoft Help team provided invaluable technical assistance at crucial moments in the project, and Eric Promislow and Vladimir Baikalov of ActiveState built the install package that plugs our Help collection into Visual Studio .NET. Frank Gocinski of the Visual Studio .NET Integration Program was instrumental in helping us become full partners in the program. A special tip of the hat to Rob Howard of Microsoft who supported our original vision and helped us make the right connections with the Visual Studio .NET team to get this project off the ground.