The best way to improve what you do is to find someone who will do it for you better than you could have done yourself. I’ve seen this principle in action over and over again. For example, it was fine designing the NetBeans IDE and NetBeans Platform on my own. Now, however, it is much better, since there are far more talented developers designing the various individual parts together. Similarly, I was OK writing documentation for the NetBeans Platform, but it is much better to have a group of enthusiastic people who produce tons of interesting tutorials and blogs on topics that I would never have thought up myself. Along the same lines, it was entertaining to contribute to a book about the NetBeans Platform. However, it is an order of magnitude better to see this one by Heiko! It is richer and more interesting. Plus, it covers topics that I never dreamed of covering myself.

My first encounter with this book dates back to 2007 when Heiko finished his German version. I was asked to review the book’s content. However, as my German reading abilities are close to zero, my goal was more to read the sample Java code and ensure that correct patterns were used and described. It quickly became easy to see that everything was more than OK. Not only that, I could immediately see that the topics were extraordinary and that they brought new ideas into the NetBeans Platform world.

I am glad that Heiko’s interesting insights are now available to a broader audience. Thank you Heiko! Thank you too, dear English translators!