This book is an outgrowth of the best-selling Java in a Nutshell. We'd like to thank all the readers who made that book a success and who wrote in with comments, suggestions, and praise.
The authors would like to say a big thank you to the book's technical reviewers, whose constructive criticism has done much to improve this work: Andy Deitsch, Jason Hunter, William Smith, and Gary Letourneau.
Java Enterprise in a Nutshell is a book I've wished I could write for some time now. Time constraints and my own lack of expertise in enterprise computing have kept me from doing it myself, and so I am deeply grateful to Jim Farley, William Crawford, and Kris Magnusson, who are experts and who did all the hard work to make this book a reality. I owe an extra thanks to Jim Farley for taking the time to help me understand Enterprise JavaBeans and the JTA and JTS transaction APIs. Paula Ferguson also earns my sincere thanks: she had the unenviable task of editing material from four independent authors and fitting it seamlessly together into a single book.
A writing project of any kind requires a much larger cast of characters than those listed on the cover. Paula Ferguson deserves mention above all, not only for doing her usual excellent editing job, but also for roping in four disobedient authors, as opposed to the usual one disobedient author. I'd like to thank David Flanagan for putting together the API listings and the introductory chapter, as well as providing great technical review comments, all of which helped integrate this into the "Java ... Nutshell" set. Technical reviewers are the unsung heroes of writing projects such as this one, so many thanks to Andy Deitsch, Bill Smith, Jason Hunter, and Gary Letourneau.
To my wife Sandy Mallalieu, who has somehow not only accepted the fact that her husband enjoys spending much of his free time on writing projects like this, but is also supportive and inspiring through it all--well, what else is there to say? My extended family, and the folks at the Harvard Business School, were supportive as always, and getting through efforts such as this makes me appreciate them both all the more. And for the late-night inspiration, my undying gratitude to Madeline and to Declan MacManus.
Writing projects would be impossible without the support of everyone at Invantage, especially Martin Streeter, Nicholas Riley, and Stephen Braverman. Jason Hunter's knowledge of servlet programming was a boon to Chapter 5. I would also like to thank the staff of the Emotion Cybernet Cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I wrote most of the class summaries for the java.sql package, paying six cents a minute for computer time. And we wouldn't be here without David Flanagan.
I have enjoyed support, encouragement, and grudging tolerance from William F. Crawford, William E. Crawford, Francine Crawford, and Faith Crawford, as well as from Joel Pomerantz, Sam Carner, and Isaac Kohane.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks goes to our editor, Paula Ferguson, for her extreme patience with me over the last year and a half.
I found a good deal of pleasure in writing the JNDI-related material for this book. And I have many people to thank for the opportunity--too many to list here. But some deserve special mention.
In particular I thank my partner and wife Kristen Dalzen for all her support, without which my work would not have been possible. She is the Empress of the Blue People, and she has enriched my life beyond description. She has been brave to bear the abandonment.
At O'Reilly, David Flanagan provided invaluable assistance in writing my portions of this book; clearly he is an asset to the entire Java community. My editor, Paula Ferguson, was equally invaluable; she tightened up my language and code like a vise. And my other editor, Mike Loukides, is a good sport for giving me time off from my other book to work on this one.
My Novell experience has been a period of immense personal growth for me. My officemates Bruce "Stocks" Bergeson, Jim Sermersheim, and Kent Boogert have been key players in that drama, as were Alan Landes, Alvin Tedjamulia, Chris Stone, Don Lavange, Don Thomas, Ed Lane, Erni Messenger, Michael J. Simpson, Mike Flathers, Mike MacKay, Ric Buhler, Scott Pead, Steve Holbrook, Steve Weitzeil, and Trisha Turner. Here's to a fruitful second act.
Outside of work, Don Yacktman and Dr. Sean Luke were instrumental in sharing their object-oriented architecture expertise over the years. And Yan Fang and her support for my computer and other habits helped immensely with my transition from fresh economics graduate to software guy.
Thanks, everyone!
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| 0.6. We'd Like to Hear from You |  | Part 1. Introducing the Java Enterprise APIs |
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