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In November 2008, I gave a presentation titled “Building Distributed Applications” at
RubyConf in Florida. After my presentation I was approached by a couple of gentlemen
telling me how much they enjoyed my talk. They wanted to know where they could find out
more about DRb and Rinda. I told them that unfortunately very little documentation on the
subject existed—just a few blog posts here and there, and the code itself. They told me I
should write a book about distributed programming with Ruby, adding that they would order
it in a heartbeat. I thought it was a great idea. Shortly before I sent my manuscript to the pub-
lisher, I received an email from one of these gentlemen, Ali Rizvi. He had stumbled across
one of my blog posts on a completely unrelated subject (the iPhone), and he realized who I
was and that I was writing this book. He dropped me a quick note to say hi and that he was
looking forward to reading the book. So Ali, now that I know your name, thank you for the
idea!
At that same conference I found myself having a few drinks in the hot tub with none
other than Obie Fernandez, the Professional Ruby Series editor for Addison-Wesley. He told
me how much he enjoyed my presentation earlier that day. I used the opportunity to pitch
him my book idea—the one I’d had only an hour before. He loved the idea and told me he
thought it would be a great book, and he would love to be a part of it. A few weeks later I
received an email from Debra Williams Cauley at Addison-Wesley, wanting to talk to me
about the book. The rest, as they say, is history.
Obie and Debra have been my guiding light with this book. Obie has given me great
advice and guidance on writing it. His direction as a series editor has been invaluable. Thank
you, Obie, for your mentoring, and thank you for helping me get this opportunity.
Debra, thank you. Thank you so much. Debra managed this book. She answered all my
questions (some good, some bad); she was always there with an answer. She never told me a
request was too outrageous. She helped guide me through the treacherous waters of book
writing, and it’s because of her that I managed to make it through to the other end mostly
unscathed. I can’t say enough great things about Debra, and I know I can never thank her as
much as she deserves to be thanked in regards to this book. Thank you, Debra.
I would like to thank Songlin Qiu. Songlin’s amazing technical editing is, quite frankly,
what made this book readable. She constantly kept me on my toes and made sure not only
that the book was consistent, but also that it was well written and worth reading. I’m pretty
sure she also fixed a million misuses of the “its” that appeared in the book. Thank you,
Songlin.
Gayle Johnson also deserves a thank you here for her copy editing. She is the one who
turned my words into poetry. Well, maybe poetry is an exaggeration, but trust me—this book
Acknowledgments xv
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