C# 3.0 Design Patterns

Acknowledgments

My first thanks are to John Osborn, my editor at O'Reilly, for keeping the faith and getting this book out on time. His care and expertise are much appreciated. To Jeff Pepper, who signed up the book quite a while ago, thanks as well. I'm sorry we could not see the project through together. Thanks also to the reviewers, Eric Lippert, Jim Whitehead, Stefan Gruner, and Pierre-Henri Kuaté, whose insightful comments—no holds barred—led to many revisions but an ultimately much better book. My department at the University of Pretoria provided me with the latest equipment, and my colleagues gave me the time to really concentrate when I needed to. In particular I thank Jan Eloff for his support and friendship. To Carlo Ghezzi of the Politecnico di Milano, who graciously hosted me for the summer of 2007, when much of the first draft was written, grazie mille. My former students Hans Lombard and D-J Miller helped at very short notice with some of the examples, and I really appreciated their fresh minds and dedication to the task.

Writing this book would have been a much less enjoyable experience without the constant support and interest of my talented friends Nigel Horspool, Rob Koenig, and Rudolph Vosser. They never knew quite when the book would really be finished, but now it is. And finally, to my mother, my sons, and my family, whose love and joie de vivre kept me going on this (yet another) book—thank you.

My sincere thanks to all the readers who have send in comments and suggested corrections. I particularly wish to thank Philip Fitzimmons, Dominik Gruntz and Brian Holland for their careful reading of the text. Jim Whitehead, Nigel Horspool and Alastair van Leeuwen continually make me defend my corner in the nicest possible way, leading to a better book all round.

—Judith Bishop

July 2008