xvi Acknowledgments
To the team at Microsoft Press: Ken Jones, the product planner: I appreciate the personal
manner in which you handle things and always look forward to Guinness sessions with you.
I think that you have an impossible job trying to make everyone happy and keep projects
moving, but somehow you still manage to do it.
To Sally Stickney, the development editor, thanks for kicking the project off the ground. I know
that the T-SQL querying book was your last project at Microsoft Press before you started your
new chosen path in life and am hopeful that it left a good impression on you. I wish you luck
and happiness in your new calling.
To Denise Bankaitis, the project editor, you of all people at Microsoft Press probably spent
most time working on the books. Thanks for your elegant project management and for
making sure things kept fl owing. It was a pleasure to work with you.
I’d also like to thank DeAnn Montoya, the project manager for the vendor editorial team,
S4Carlisle Publishing Services, and Becka McKay, the copy editor. I know you spent countless
hours going over our texts, and I appreciate it a lot.
To Solid Quality Mentors, being part of this amazing company and group of people is by far the
best thing that happened to me in my career. It’s as if all I did in my professional life led me to this
place where I can fulfi ll my calling, which is teaching people about SQL. To Fernando Guerrero,
Brian Moran, and Douglas McDowell: the company grew and matured because of your efforts, and
you have a lot to be proud of. Being part of this company, I feel a part of something meaningful
and that I’m among family and friends—among people whom I both respect and trust.
I’d like to thank my friends and colleagues from the company: Ron Talmage, Andrew J. Kelly,
Eladio Rincón, Dejan Sarka, Herbert Albert, Fritz Lechnitz, Gianluca Hotz, Erik Veerman,
Jay Hackney, Daniel A. Seara, Davide Mauri, Andrea Benedetti, Miguel Egea, Adolfo Wiernik,
Javier Loria, Rushabh Mehta, Greg Low, Peter Myers, Randy Dyess, and many others. I’d like
to thank Jeanne Reeves for making many of my classes possible and all the back-offi ce team
for their support. I’d also like to thank Kathy Blomstrom for managing our writing projects
and for your excellent edits.
I’d like to thank the members of the SQL Server development team who are working on T-SQL
and its optimization: Michael Wang, Michael Rys, Eric Hanson, Umachandar Jayachandran
(UC), Tobias Thernström, Jim Hogg, Isaac Kunen, Krzysztof Kozielczyk, Cesar Galindo-Legaria,
Craig Freedman, Conor Cunningham, and many others. For better or worse, what you develop
is what we have to work with, and so far the results are outstanding! Still, until we get a full
implementation of the OVER clause, you know I won’t stop bothering you. ;-)
I’d like to thank Dubi Lebel and Assaf Fraenkel from Microsoft Israel and also Ami Levin, who
helps me run the Israeli SQL Server users group.
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