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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
gnarly ePub Ruby and XLST code. And yes, thanks to Andrew Snow for assisting with a
difficult moral problem in chapter 16 at Railscamp in June 2011.
In addition to those who’ve been leaving notes in Twist, there are the people at
Manning. First, thanks to Christina Rudloff for the initial contact and Michael Stephens
for the late-night chats and management of the process. Candace Gillhooley
and Nick Chase have also been enormously helpful.
Cynthia Kane, my development editor at Manning, is particularly special. Her job
was to tell me when I was doing things wrong, such as not segueing between sections
or making the text flow too fast, and to leave me notes such as “FIGURE!!!” when I
needed an image to go along with the text. Our almost weekly catch-ups were well
worthwhile; it was great always having someone there, prodding me for more content
and talking through the process. Marjan Bace, fearless leader of Manning Publications,
should also be credited for supporting this project for as long as it has been
around.
The production team at Manning, including Troy Mott, has been great throughout
this process too. The extreme focus they’ve shown in finishing this book is stunning. I
also need to mention the wonderful work by Doug Warren in the final technical
proofing of the book, as well as Manning’s copyeditors, who touched up basically
every single paragraph in the book.
Special thanks to the reviewers who took time out of their busy schedules to provide
feedback on the manuscript at different stages during development. They
include Jason Rogers, Craig Smith, Emmanuel Asante, Chad Moone, Dr. Jamie P. Finlay,
Dave Nicolette, Grant Oladipo, Jean-Philippe Castro, Americo Savinon, Thomas
Athanas, Chris Kelly, Greg Vaughn, Pete Helgren, Joshua R Cronemeyer, Peter Melo,
Robby O’Connor, Philip Hallstrom, Curtis Miller, Patrick Peak, Anthony J. Topper,
Brian Rose, Daniel Bretoi, Wesley Moxam, Jon Agnes, and David Workman
Finally, my friends and family have been amazing throughout my entire life, all the
way from my parents—who supported my career choice in Ruby on Rails and technical
writing, even though they paid for me to study Network Admin at TAFE and always
told me that I should “get out the house more”—to my current housemate, who
accepts that we don’t see much of each other (or at least I think so). You’re all wonderful
people, and I hope now that the book is over I will see more of you. I would list
you all here if only it didn’t require this book to be printed in a multivolume series.
RYAN BIGG
Rails 3 in Action is a long-time coming. To give you some perspective, the book was
originally called Merb in Action, and it managed a perpetual beta through the Merb
merge, the release of Rails 3.0, and is finally ready just in time for Rails 3.1.
I can say with confidence that Rails 3 in Action would not exist without the hard,
tireless work of Ryan Bigg. It was Ryan’s idea to focus the book around real-world testing
from the ground up, and it makes Rails 3 in Action the first book for Rails practitioners
that teaches Rails the way professional Rails developers do it.