Josh Skeen - Kotlin Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

First edition, first printing, July 2018
Release E.1.1.1

We received a lot of help in writing this book. Without that help, this book would not be what it is, and it may never even have happened. Thanks are due.

First, we need to say thank you to our colleagues at Big Nerd Ranch. Thank you to Stacy Henry and Aaron Hillegass for providing us with the time and space to write this book. It has been immensely gratifying to learn and teach Kotlin. We hope that this book lives up to the trust and the support that we have received.

Particular thanks are also due to our colleagues at Big Nerd Ranch. Your careful teaching revealed many bugs in the text, and your thoughtful recommendations led to many improvements in our approach. It is truly wonderful to have colleagues such as you. Thank you Kristin Marsicano, Bolot Kerimbaev, Brian Gardner, Chris Stewart, Paul Turner, Chris Hare, Mark Allison, Andrew Lunsford, Rafael Moreno Cesar, Eric Maxwell, Andrew Bailey, Jeremy Sherman, Christian Keur, Mikey Ward, Steve Sparks, Mark Dalrymple, CBQ, and everyone else at the Ranch who helped us with this work.

Our colleagues in operations, marketing, and sales are also instrumental. Classes would literally never be scheduled without their work. Thank you Heather Sharpe, Mat Jackson, Rodrigo "Ram Rod" Perez-Velasco, Nicholas Stolte, Justin Williams, Dan Barker, Israel Machovec, Emily Herman, Patrick Freeman, Ian Eze, and Nikki Porter. We cannot do what we do without what you do.

Special thanks and an extra bit of karma are also owed to our amazing students who were adventurous enough to join us for the early access version of the course and were kind enough to help us identify errata. Without your feedback and insights into how to improve the course, this text would not be where it is today. Those students include: Santosh Katta, Abdul Hannan, Chandra Mohan, Benjamin DiGregorio, Peng Wan, Kapil Bhalla, Girish Hanchinal, Hashan Godakanda, Mithun Mahadevan, Brittany Berlanga, Natalie Ryan, Balarka Velidi, Pranay Airan, Jacob Rogers, Jean-Luc Delpech, Dennis Lin, Kristina Thai, Reid Baker, Setareh Lotfi, Harish Ravichandran, Matthew Knapp, Nathan Klee, Brian Lee, Heidi Muth, Martin Davidsson, Misha Burshteyn, Kyle Summers, Cameron Hill, Vidhi Shah, Fabrice Di Meglio, Jared Burrows, Riley Brewer, Michael Krause, Tyler Holland, Gajendra Singh, Pedro Sanchez, Joe Cyboski, Zach Waldowski, Noe Arzate, Allan Caine, Zack Simon, Josh Meyers, Rick Meyers, Stephanie Guevara, Abdulrahman Alshmrani, Robert Edwards, Maribel Montejano, and Mohammad Yusuf.

We want to extend a special thank you to our colleagues and members of the Android community who helped us test the book's accuracy, clarity, and ease of use. Without your external perspective, putting this book together would have been even more daunting. Thank you Jon Reeve, Bill Phillips, Matthew Compton, Vishnu Rajeevan, Scott Stanlick, Alex Lumans, Shauvik Choudhary, and Jason Atwood.

We also need to acknowledge the many talented folks who worked on the book with us. Elizabeth Holaday, our editor, helped refine the book, crystallize its strengths, and diminish its weaknesses. Anna Bentley, our copyeditor, found and corrected errors and ultimately made us look smarter than we are. Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover. And Chris Loper designed and produced the print book and the EPUB and Kindle versions.

Finally, thank you to all our students. Being your teacher offers us the opportunity to be a student in many ways, and for that we are immensely grateful. Teaching is part of the greatest thing that we do, and it has been a pleasure working with you. We hope that the quality of this book matches your enthusiasm and determination.