I had no idea what I was getting into when taking on this book. Writing a book is a long, arduous task that consumes your entire life, but now that this book is complete I would like to thank those who were instrumental in helping it come to fruition.

I'd like to start by thanking the members of the Apress team with whom I worked closely throughout the writing process. I'm grateful for their guidance and encouragement. I'd like to thank Jonathon Hassell and Anne Collett, and in particular Tracy Brown, who was extremely patient with me even as deadlines were rapidly approaching. My great thanks also go to my technical editor Ilia Iordanov, who, with an eagle eye, spotted many issues I had missed, and made some great suggestions.

I would especially like to thank Greg Harris (www.GregMHarris.com) who gave his time to review every chapter in its draft form, and who provided me with extensive feedback. I really appreciate the amount of time and effort Greg voluntarily spent on this project. His contributions are invaluable.

I would also like to thank Miguel Madero and Pencho Popadiyn, who provided additional valuable feedback on the Model-View-ViewModel Design Pattern chapter, and Sergey Klementiev for providing a solution to a problem I had with RIA Services. My thanks also go to all the Silverlight bloggers who provided solutions to difficult problems. I've credited you in the text when you've provided information that helped me along my way.

From a personal perspective, I'd really like to thank my sister Michelle, chef extraordinare, for providing me with home-cooked frozen meals that kept me decently fed for a month when I was working furiously on this book and barely leaving the house. It was a huge help. I'd also like to thank Mark Wallis, who covered for me with my clients whilst I had my head down writing. I hope they'll forgive my absence.