A book is the result of the work of many people. Unfortunately, only the authors have their names on the cover and this page is only a partial compensation for the help of other individuals.
First, we want to thank Luca Bolognese for his efforts in giving us resources and contacts that helped us to write a book on beta softwdare while it was in the middle of a release cycle. We also want to thank all the people from Microsoft who answered our questions along the way — in particular, Mads Torgersen, Amanda Silver, Erick Thompson, and Luke Hoban. Moreover, Charlie Calvert deserves special mention for his precious help at a critical moment for us.
If you understand what we wrote, we do not deserve all the credit. We had the good fortune to have some great people at Microsoft Press edit our drafts: John Pierce and Roger LeBlanc. John has followed this project since we first had the idea for it; he helped us to stay on track, answered all our questions, remained tolerant of our delays, and improved a lot of our drafts. Roger has been so accurate and patient in his editing work that we really do not have words to explain the exceptional value of his work.
Many people had the patience to read our drafts and suggest improvements and corrections. Big thanks to Teo Lachev, Alberto Ferrari, Roberto Brunetti, and Sergio Murru for their reviews. Finally, we would like to thank Francesco Balena and Giovanni Librando, who supported us many months ago when we decided to try writing an English book.