Acknowledgments

I had never considered writing a book until Meeta from Packt Publishing sent me an e-mail, asking me if I was interested in writing the book that you are holding. My first reaction was excitement immediately followed by fear. I have heard that writing a book is an arduous and painful undertaking with scant reward—was I really ready to pe into that? Fortunately, writing this book was nothing of the sort—all due to the many wonderful people that helped me along the way.

First and foremost are the technical reviewers Reed Copsey, Jr. and César Roberto de Souza. Their attention to detail, their spot-on suggestions, and occasional words of encouragement made all of the difference. Next, the team at Packt of Meeta Rajani, Pankaj Kadam, and Laxmi Subramanian took my words, code samples, and screenshots and turned them into something, well, beautiful. Mathias Branpeder, Evalina Gasborova, Melinda Thielbar, James McCaffrey, Phil Trelford, Seth Jurez, and Chris Kalle all helped me at different points with questions about what and how to present the machine learning models and ideas. Dmitry Morozov and Ross McKinlay were indispensable for explaining the finer points of type providers. Isaac Abraham helped me with the section on MBrace and Tomas Petricek helped me with the section on Deedle. Chris Matthews and Mark Hutchinson reviewed the initial outline and gave me great feedback. Ian Hoppes saved me hours (days?) by sharing his expertise on the finer points of Razor and JavaScript. Finally, Rob Seder, Mike Esposito, and Kevin Allen encouraged and supported me throughout the entire process.

To everyone I mentioned and the people I may have missed, please accept my sincerest thanks.

Finally, my deepest love for the initial proofreader, soul mate, and best wife any person could have: Jill Dixon. I am truly the luckiest man in the world to be with you.