This book would not be possible (nor very useful) if Subversion did not exist. For that, the authors would like to thank Brian Behlendorf and CollabNet for the vision to fund such a risky and ambitious new open source project; Jim Blandy for the original Subversion name and design—we love you, Jim; and Karl Fogel for being such a good friend and a great community leader, in that order. [1]
Thanks to O'Reilly and our various editors: Chuck Toporek, Linda Mui, Tatiana Apandi, Mary Brady, and Mary Treseler. Their patience and support has been tremendous.
Finally, we thank the countless people who contributed to this book with informal reviews, suggestions, and patches. While this is undoubtedly not a complete list, this book would be incomplete and incorrect without their help: Bhuvaneswaran A, David Alber, C. Scott Ananian, David Anderson, Ariel Arjona, Seth Arnold, Jani Averbach, Charles Bailey, Ryan Barrett, Francois Beausoleil, Brian R. Becker, Yves Bergeron, Karl Berry, Jennifer Bevan, Matt Blais, Jim Blandy, Phil Bordelon, Sietse Brouwer, Tom Brown, Zack Brown, Martin Buchholz, Paul Burba, Sean Callan-Hinsvark, Branko Cibej, Archie Cobbs, Jason Cohen, Ryan Cresawn, John R. Daily, Peter Davis, Olivier Davy, Robert P. J. Day, Mo DeJong, Brian Denny, Joe Drew, Markus Dreyer, Nick Duffek, Boris Dusek, Ben Elliston, Justin Erenkrantz, Jens M. Felderhoff, Kyle Ferrio, Shlomi Fish, Julian Foad, Chris Foote, Martin Furter, Vlad Georgescu, Peter Gervai, Dave Gilbert, Eric Gillespie, David Glasser, Marcel Gosselin, Lieven Govaerts, Steve Greenland, Matthew Gregan, Tom Gregory, Maverick Grey, Art Haas, Mark E. Hamilton, Eric Hanchrow, Liam Healy, Malte Helmert, Michael Henderson, Øyvind A. Holm, Greg Hudson, Alexis Huxley, Auke Jilderda, Toby Johnson, Jens B. Jorgensen, Tez Kamihira, David Kimdon, Mark Benedetto King, Robert Kleemann, Erik Kline, Josh Knowles, Andreas J. Koenig, Axel Kollmorgen, Nuutti Kotivuori, Kalin Kozhuharov, Matt Kraai, Regis Kuckaertz, Stefan Kueng, Steve Kunkee, Scott Lamb, Wesley J. Landaker, Benjamin Landsteiner, Vincent Lefevre, Morten Ludvigsen, Dennis Lundberg, Paul Lussier, Bruce A. Mah, Jonathon Mah, Karl Heinz Marbaise, Philip Martin, Feliciano Matias, Neil Mayhew, Patrick Mayweg, Gareth McCaughan, Craig McElroy, Simon McKenna, Christophe Meresse, Jonathan Metillon, Jean-Francois Michaud, Jon Middleton, Robert Moerland, Marcel Molina Jr., Tim Moloney, Alexander Mueller, Tabish Mustufa, Christopher Ness, Roman Neuhauser, Mats Nilsson, Greg Noel, Joe Orton, Eric Paire, Dimitri Papadopoulos-Orfanos, Jerry Peek, Chris Pepper, Amy Lyn Pilato, Kevin Pilch-Bisson, Hans Polak, Dmitriy Popkov, Michael Price, Mark Proctor, Steffen Prohaska, Daniel Rall, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Jack Repenning, Tobias Ringstrom, Jason Robbins, Garrett Rooney, Joel Rosdahl, Christian Sauer, Ryan Schmidt, Jochem Schulenklopper, Jens Seidel, Daniel Shahaf, Larry Shatzer, Danil Shopyrin, Erik Sjoelund, Joey Smith, W. Snyder, Stefan Sperling, Robert Spier, M. S. Sriram, Russell Steicke, David Steinbrunner, Sander Striker, David Summers, Johan Sundstroem, Ed Swierk, John Szakmeister, Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis, Robert Tasarz, Michael W. Thelen, Mason Thomas, Erik van der Kolk, Joshua Varner, Eric Wadsworth, Chris Wagner, Colin Watson, Alex Waugh, Chad Whitacre, Andy Whitcroft, Josef Wolf, Luke Worth, Hyrum Wright, Blair Zajac, Florian Zumbiehl, and the entire Subversion community.
Thanks to my wife Frances, who, for many months, got to hear “But honey, I'm still working on the book,” rather than the usual “But honey, I'm still doing email.” I don't know where she gets all that patience! She's my perfect counterbalance.
Thanks to my extended family and friends for their sincere encouragement, despite having no actual interest in the subject. (You know, the ones who say, “Ooh, you wrote a book?” and then when you tell them it's a computer book, sort of glaze over.)
Thanks to all my close friends, who make me a rich, rich man. Don't look at me that way—you know who you are.
Thanks to my parents for the perfect low-level formatting and being unbelievable role models. Thanks to my kids for the opportunity to pass that on.
Huge thanks to my wife Marie for being incredibly understanding, supportive, and most of all, patient. Thank you to my brother Eric who first introduced me to Unix programming way back when. Thanks to my Mom and Grandmother for all their support, not to mention enduring a Christmas holiday where I came home and promptly buried my head in my laptop to work on the book.
To Mike and Ben: it was a pleasure working with you on the book. Heck, it's a pleasure working with you at work!
To everyone in the Subversion community and the Apache Software Foundation, thanks for having me. Not a day goes by where I don't learn something from at least one of you.
Lastly, thanks to my grandfather, who always told me that “freedom equals responsibility.” I couldn't agree more.
Special thanks to Amy, my best friend and wife of more than ten incredible years, for her love and patient support, for putting up with the late nights, and for graciously enduring the version control processes I've imposed on her. Don't worry, sweetheart—you'll be a TortoiseSVN wizard in no time!
Gavin, you're able to read half of the words in this book yourself now; sadly, it's the other half that provide the key concepts. And sorry, Aidan—I couldn't find a way to work Disney/Pixar characters into the text. But Daddy loves you both, and can't wait to teach you about programming.
Mom and Dad, thanks for your constant support and enthusiasm. Mom- and Dad-in-law, thanks for all of the same plus your fabulous daughter.
Hats off to Shep Kendall, through whom the world of
computers was first opened to me; Ben Collins-Sussman, my
tour guide through the open source world; Karl Fogel, you
are my .emacs; Greg
Stein, for oozing practical programming know-how; and Brian
Fitzpatrick, for sharing this writing experience with me.
To the many folks from whom I am constantly picking up new
knowledge—keep dropping it!
Finally, to the One who perfectly demonstrates creative excellence—thank You.