Acknowledgments

We are indebted to a great many people who have contributed in the development and production of this book. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jonathan Gennick, the editor of the book. Jonathan's vision for this book, close attention to details, and exceptional editing skills are the reasons this book is here today.

Our sincere thanks to our technical reviewers: Diana Lorentz, Jeff Cox, Stephan Andert, Rich White, Peter Linsley, and Chris Lee, who generously gave their valuable time to read and comment on a draft copy of this book. Their contributions have greatly improved its accuracy, readability, and value.

This book certainly would not have been possible without a lot of hard work and support from the skillful staff at O'Reilly & Associates, including Ellie Volckhausen and Emma Colby, the cover designers, David Futato, the interior designer, Neil Walls, who converted the files, Colleen Gorman, the copyeditor and production editor, Rob Romano and Jessamyn Read, the illustrators, Sheryl Avruch and Ann Schirmer, who provided quality control, and Tom Dinse, the indexer. Also, thanks to Tim O'Reilly for taking time to go through this book and providing valuable feedback.

From Sanjay

My heartfelt thanks to my coauthor Alan for his outstanding technical skills, and for his constant cooperation during the writing of this book. Special thanks to Jonathan for not only editing this book, but also for providing me with remote access to his Oracle9i database.

My adventure with Oracle started in the Tribology Workbench project at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, India. Sincere thanks to my co-workers in the Tribology Workbench project for all the experiments and explorations we did during our learning days with Oracle. Special thanks to Sarosh Muncherji, the Deputy Team Leader, for picking me up for the project and then pushing me into the Oracle world by assigning me the responsibility of being the DBA. Ever since, Oracle database technology has become a way of life for me.

Sincere thanks to my co-workers at i2 Technologies for support and encouragement.

Last, but not the least, I thank my wife, Sudipti, for her support, understanding, and constant encouragement.

From Alan

I would like to thank my coauthor Sanjay and my editor Jonathan Gennick for sharing my vision for this book, and for their technical and editorial prowess. I would never have reached the finish line without your help and encouragement.

Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Nancy, for her support, patience, and encouragement, and my daughters, Michelle and Nicole, for their love and inspiration.