ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A preface is not complete without acknowledging
the other people that make a book possible. Being an author is like
being at the peak of a pyramid. . . you are being supported (and
your work made possible) in various ways by a multitude of other
people. This is my chance to acknowledge and thank them. . . by
name for the ones I'm aware of.
Kent Beck for making TDD and XP household
words—at least in my household—and for his support of
this book.
Miroslav Novak for first turning me on to this
new way of programming that a bunch of smart people were talking
about on something called a Wiki. Miroslav may be my junior in
terms of time spent programming, but I've learned more from him
than I sometimes care to admit.
Patrick Wilson-Welsh for several things: for
always reminding me of the big picture when I got mired down in the
details of the moment; for being the best sounding board and copy
editor that an author could ask for; and for having the courage to
leave an established life in Washington, D.C. to move to small-town
Canada to become my co-founder and first apprentice.
Dave Thomas of "The Pragmatic Programmers"[URL
55]for letting me use the macros he
wrote for the book "The Pragmatic Programmer"[25]. That
book was inspiring in its layout and typesetting as well as
catalytic in bringing about a turning point in my thoughts about
programming.
Hand in hand with "The Pragmatic Programmer"
went "Software Craftsmanship"[34] by Pete
McBreen. I mean that literally,.. . I read them back-to-back. Pete
provides a wonderful introduction to and discussion of software as
a craft. A fabulous book, it was another contributing factor to my
career-shaking epiphany (the third being XP). Thanks, Pete.
Peter Coad, to whom I owe a great debt for
taking me under his wing in many ways and helping me to get this
project off the ground. I have to thank him also for letting me
charge ahead with a TDD edition of The Coad Letter[URL 61].
Paul Petralia, my acquisitions editor at
Prentice Hall, and the fine crew that works with him. Thanks for
letting us convince you that this book isn't about "Testing," and
for believing in it whole heartedly once we had accomplished
that.
Craig Larman must be mentioned here for his
encouragement, support, and advice. I still have great memories of
spending a day with Craig at his home outside Dallas, discussing
UML and Together[URL 34]and drinking homemade Chai.
And a big thanks to Ron Jeffries for writing the
foreword for me, as well as being generally supportive of my
XP-related endeavors, specifically (well, what comes to mind as I
write this) this book, and the TDD Coad Letter. Also, for doing so
much to bring XP so far.
Special thanks and a hearty acknowledgement to
members of the TDD Yahoo! group that sent me their JUnit tips:
Darren Hobbs, J. B. Rainsberger, and Derek Weber.
Very special thanks to those that contributed to
the book by writing and letting me use material on subjects that
they are the experts in, specifically (in order of appearance):
Mike Clark
for the section on JUnitPerf,
Jens Uwe
Pipka for the section on the Daedalos extensions,
Tim Bacon for
the section on xmlUnit,
Mike Bowler
for the section on the Gargoyle extensions,
Bryan Dollery
for the section on IDEA,
James Newkirk
for the chapter on NUnit,
Bob Payne for
stepping in at the last minute with the chapter on PyUnit,
Kay Pentecost
for the chapter on vbUnit, and
Scott Ambler
for the appendix on agile modeling.
Thanks to all the folks in the XP community who
gave me feedback (in no particular order): Kay Pentecost, Edmund
Schweppe, Aldo Bergamini, Mike Clark, Francesco Cirillo, and my
friends, colleagues, and past co-authors: Randy Miller and Miroslav
Novak. As with all authors, I'm sure I've missed someone. Sorry
about that.
I need to acknowledge and thank my reviewers as
well: Alan Francis and William Wake.
And yes, as Kent Beck says in the preface of his
TDD book[9], it is
cliché to thank our families, but they heartily deserve it. To
my wife, Kate, for saying "I'll clean up the kitchen. You go
write." To my kids, Tasha and Jason, for being understanding when I
had to write, and for thinking that it's so cool to have a Dad who
writes books. Finally, to my youngest child, Leah, who is too young
to notice what I'm doing but simply smiles when she sees me and
gives me a hug when I pick her up.
This book was produced using a variety of open
source software. All my computers run Redhat Linux. The manuscript
was prepared using GNU Emacs, and typeset using . Image
manipulation was done with Gimp. The xdvi previewer was used
extensively. The PDF version was created using dvips, and ps2pdf.
Several packages were used with , some off the shelf (lgrind, draft-copy, and fixme),
several courtesy of Dave Thomas (for exercises, extended cross
reference support, and url references), and several of my own
(chapter heading quotes, story/task/test management, sidebars, and
tips).
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