Acknowledgments

In prior versions of this text I have thanked first among my colleagues my former department chair, Jim Gips, who has been my very best mentor, a dear friend, steadfast and unflinching advocate, and who so kindly and repeatedly gave me rides home where we’d often linger in his car for long chats that reflected his deep care and concern for his students, colleagues, university, and society. As creator of the EagleEyes and Camera Mouse projects (cameramouse.org), Prof. Gips has given voice to countless people with disabilities worldwide and because of this, he was the single most impactful researcher that I know. Jim passed away in June 2018. The New York Times ran an obituary (see https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/obituaries/james-gips-who-extended-computer-use-to-the-disabled-dies-at-72.html) of this brilliant, kind, humble, and inspiring man who helped so many. I will miss him dearly.

As always, my enduring thanks to my current and former students, who continue to inspire, impress, and teach me more than I thought possible. It’s deeply rewarding to see so many former students return to campus as executive speakers, and to so kindly host visiting students at their own firms. Serving as your professor has been my greatest professional privilege, and I am grateful for such an extraordinary opportunity. Keep at it,  and continue to make us all proud!

Thanks also to the many alumni, parents, and friends of Boston College who have so generously invited me to bring my students to visit with and learn from them. The experiences that you’ve provided to us have been nothing short of astonishing. We were present at the launch of the iPhone. We’ve not only made twice-a-year pilgrimages to Sand Hill Road, One Infinite Loop, Hacker Way, and The Googleplex, but many of our former students were funded and mentored by the VCs we’ve visited with. Name a tech firm making waves and we’ve almost certainly got an alumnus there, and whenever I’ve asked, they’ve uniformly opened their offices to share insight with our students. The East and West Coast leadership of the Boston College Technology Council have played a particularly important role in making this happen. From Bangalore to Boston, Guangzhou to Ghana, Seoul to Silicon Valley, you’ve provided my students with world-class opportunities, enabling us to meet with scores of CEOs, senior executives, partners, and entrepreneurs. You’ve positively impacted lives, shaped careers, and helped make our university stronger. My students and I remain deeply grateful for your commitment and support.

A tremendous thanks to my former student research team at Boston College who have helped me keep the edition up to date. The team includes: Kaitlin Ardiff, Abhinav Arora, Kathie Chang, Phil Gill, Michael Lapointe, Xin (Steven) Liu, Tiffany Liu, Rootul Patel, Kelly Pedersen, Mujtaba Syed, and Branick Weix who at various times sped things along and helped me fill this project with rich, interesting examples. You have all been so kind to tolerate my constant and unreasonable requests.

I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues at Boston College. Tremendous thanks, as well, to my current department chair, Rob Fichman, for his continued support of this project; to my BC IS Department colleagues Jerry Kane, for helping shape the social media section; and Sam Ransbotham, for guiding me through the minefield of information security. (Jerry and Sam both hold NSF CAREER grants and are MIT Sloan Management Review editors for Social Media and Big Data, respectively.) Leonard Evenchik, Grace Gu, Anna Karpovsky, Do Yoon Kim, and Zhuoxin (Allen) Li—I hope the text helps make your teaching time at BC a bit easier. A special thanks to BC Professor George Wyner, who has provided extraordinary guidance, encouragement, ideas, friendship, and the occasional and most welcome beverage—all of which have kept me motivated on two high-demand textbook projects. I’m so lucky to work with such brilliant and caring faculty. I hope you know how very much I appreciate you all.

I'm also grateful for the folks at FlatWorld, who continue to wear the white hats while offering low-cost, highly innovative learning products, challenging industry conventions, and helping students and faculty worldwide. Lindsey Kaetzel has been an especially understanding, highly skilled, and rapidly responding steward of this work. Thank you so much for keeping things on track and making the final product stronger. Sean Wakely, thank you for texts, phone calls, and meetings that have kept me on track and focused on priorities. You have assembled the Justice League of the Textbook Publishing Industry to get the word out on our low-cost, high-impact product. And Alastair Adam and John Eielson, thank you for your stewardship of FlatWorld and for the countless improvements at the firm. I look forward to great things to come.

I would also like to thank the following colleagues who so kindly offered their time and comments while reviewing this work:

I’m also grateful to the kindness and insight provided by early adopters of this text. Your comments, encouragement, suggestions, and student feedback were extremely helpful in keeping me focused and motivated while advancing the current edition:

I’ll continue to share what I hope are useful insights via my blog, The Week In Geek (http://www.gallaugher.com), and Twitter (@gallaugher). Do feel free to offer comments, encouragement, ideas, and examples for future versions. I am hugely appreciative of all who continue to share the word about this project with others. Your continued advocacy helps make this model work! Want to learn to program and build apps? Check out the online learning resource at http://gallaugher.com/swift. Professors, it’s a great way to offer a high-impact, light-lifting technical course in a flipped-class model, and it also works well for online learning, independent study, as well as for a traditional lecture-driven programming course.

And finally, a thanks to my family, to whom I’ve dedicated this book. That really doesn’t do a shred of justice to my great fortune in being Kim’s husband and father to Ian, Maya, and Lily. You’ve been especially tolerant of the time commitment associated with my publishing projects. You are my world.