The Acknowledgements from my book
I've really been wanting to share the acknowledgements from my book with a wider audience than just the readers of my book (or for that matter, just the readers who happen to even bother reading the Preface. ;)). So, here they are:
Where do I begin? I have had great help and support from many people at Microsoft
and many developers around the globe. At Microsoft, I would like to thank many people
on the Entity Framework and Data Programmability teams for their support and continual
efforts to help me not only understand the Entity Framework, but also enable
me to share my understanding with so many others through speaking at conferences
and user groups as well as through articles. Elisa Flasko and Mike Pizzo helped me to
better understand the big picture of the Entity Framework and have ensured that I have
access to the information I need. Technically, I couldn’t have done any of this without
the support of Danny Simmons, Zlatko Michailov, Pablo Castro, Noam Ben-Ami, Colin
Meek, Sanjay Nagamangalam, Diego Vega, Mike Kaufman, Jeff Reed, Alex James, Jeff
Derstadt, Brad Sarsfield, and Bruno Gardia Robles. Many of these folks patiently answered
my questions in the forums as well as in elaborate email threads (even on nights
and weekends). They also looked over many of the chapters to make sure I didn’t
mislead anyone, and to provide further enlightenment.
Throughout the course of writing this book, a number of folks in the community looked
at what I was doing and helped me shape the content. Everyone reading this book owes
these people a debt of gratitude, as their feedback and comments had a huge impact
on the final product. My harshest critic, whom I thank profusely for that criticism, was
Jim Wooley, coauthor of the beautifully written LINQ in Action. My muse for making
sure I wasn’t too confusing for those brand-new to the Entity Framework was Camey
Combs, who I’m proud to report recently gave her first Code Camp presentation in
Seattle and her topic was the Entity Framework. Fabulous feedback in critical areas
from Shawn Wildermuth, Markus Rytterkull, Jarod Ferguson, Tony Sneed, and Paul
Gielens also had a big impact on the final product. But the man to blame for this whole
adventure is Guy Barrette, who gave me the final push from contemplating this book
to committing to it.
I am grateful for the friendship and support of three brilliant women who have been
through this process before: Kathleen Dollard, Kate Gregory, and Michele Leroux
Bustamante.
Thanks also to TechSmith (http://www.techsmith.com/), which provided me with a license
to its awesome screen capture utility, SnagIt, which I used for all of the screenshots
in the book. And if not for Tangible’s Instant C# and Instant VB (http://tangible
softwaresolutions.com/) code conversion tools, I might still be sitting here pounding out
the dual C# and VB samples used throughout the book.
Thanks to my editor, John Osborn, for keeping me on track and giving me lots of virtual
pats on the back when I experienced some of the difficulties of book writing that many
other technical authors warned me about, and in general to O’Reilly Media for so much
support and encouragement and boxes full of chocolate goodies when I needed them
most. (Thanks, Laurel!) As this is my first book, I had no idea what I was getting into.
John was a great mentor with respect to understanding how to bring structure to the
flurry of ideas that I was eager to get down on paper.
Audrey Doyle, the copyeditor, was heroic in not only cleaning up my words, but also
keeping me honest when I drifted off course. At a later stage in the process, O’Reilly’s
production editor, Loranah Dimant, was equally patient, tireless, and meticulous as
we polished everything up to get it ready for the printer.
My mother is an author whose very first novel, written in her early 30s, was put up for
a Pulitzer Prize by her publisher, DoubleDay Press. She’s a tough act to follow for sure,
but here I am having found my own path to writing. She’ll not understand a word of
this book, but we have found new entertainment in comparing our books’ daily rankings
on Amazon.
The guy who suffered most through this long and arduous process was my very patient
husband, Rich Flynn, who thankfully expanded his culinary expertise beyond Kraft
Macaroni and Cheese as I emerged less frequently from my office to make dinner. In
so many ways, Rich truly enabled me to hunker down to work on this book so that I
didn’t have to worry too much about the day-to-day things in our lives, even though
much of what I was doing was a complete mystery to him.
In the middle of this process, during one awful week, I suffered the painful loss of my
two beloved Newfoundland dogs, Tasha and Daisy. At ages 14½ and 13½, these dear,
dear girls had lived wonderfully long lives, which is very unusual for “Newfies.” I have
put off truly mourning them so that I could get through writing this book, and I thank
their lovely spirits for their patience.
