Acknowledgments

I'd like to acknowledge the following people for their contributions to the fourth edition.

Thanks to Dmitri Korzh and Techne Group for their skill in editing, formatting, and indexing that turned my attempts at using FrameMaker from a rough chunk of raw text into a real professional, polished book.

I'd like to acknowledge Oleg Orel, a brilliant student from NetApp, who wrote the initial program to illustrate "closures" in the chapter on objects, and who helped me with the problems I was having downloading modules from CPAN.

Thank you, Mark Taub, the editor-in-chief to be praised for being very cool in every step of the process from the signing of the contract to the final book that you have now in your hand. Mark has a way of making such an arduous task seem possible; he soft talks impossible deadlines, keeps up a steady pressure, and doesn't get crazy over missed deadlines, quietly achieving his goal and always with a subtle sense of humor. Thank you, Mark, for being the driving force behind this new edition!

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the contributions of the Perl pioneers—Larry Wall, Randal Schwartz, and Tom Christiansen. Their books are must reading and include Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz and Programming Perl by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant.

And last, but certainly not least, a huge thanks to all the students, worldwide, who have done all the real troubleshooting and kept the subject alive.