Programming Internet Email

Acknowledgments

Book acknowledgments always seem to start with something like “So many people helped ….” Now I know why.

First, this book is dedicated to Bernadette and Aidan, who make such an effort worthwhile. Bernadette is there for me when I decide to overschedule, and I appreciate that very much. Aidan cooperated through most of this writing, being too young yet to ask why Daddy was still busy late at night.

I would like to especially thank Chris Ryan and Brad Marshall of Plugged In Software. Chris wrote the Java examples in this book when time was getting pretty tight. Brad performed much research, looking for URLs of value. Both of them were full of good suggestions for content.

This book relies very heavily on researchers and RFC authors whose work has created the foundation of the Internet mail system. Some of these folks are Jonathan Postel, David Crocker, Nathaniel Borenstein, Ned Freed, Mark Crispin, John Meyers, Marshall Rose, John Klensin, Randy Catoe, Paul Krumviede, Russell Nelson, D. J. Bernstein, Paul Hoffman, Michael Elkins, Chris Newman, Jim Gavin, Sandy Murphy, Steve Crocker, Frank Dawson, Tim Howes, Mark Smith, Einar Stefferud, and Keith Moore. There are many, many others hidden in the hallowed halls of one institution or another.

Jon Postel, the author of RFC 821 (“Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”), died during the time this book was being written. Jon was a pioneer of the Internet and his passing serves to remind us that the Net did not begin in the early 1990s. We are entering a new generation of its use, not the first one.