must start by thanking the late john vlissidesone of the original "gang of four,for his clear explanations of several points about these design patterns he worked just few doors down from me at ibm research and didn' mind my dropping in for chat about patterns from time to time also really appreciated early supportive comments from arianne dee and ausif mahmoodas well as vaughn cooper of coursemy editordebra williamshas been both supportive and creative in helping me bring this project to fruitionas have the reviewersnick cohron and regina monaco and from development point of viewchris zahn has been terrific hope you enjoy writing patterns in python as much as have james cooper wiltonct july