AppleScript: The Missing Manual

Foreword

I created the Missing Manual series in 1999, and then I went on to write or edit the first 25 books. But strange as it may sound, I’ve rarely been as excited as I am about this book, which I didn’t write or edit.

That’s because I’m the discoverer of its author.

Or, rather, he discovered me. At a book signing in New York City. Adam had come all the way from his home in New Jersey just to meet me. Of course, I was flattered, even if he was only 14 years old.

I found it kind of charming when he described himself a programmer. I thought to myself: Isn’t that cute? He probably did a little HyperCard stack.

That will be the last time I ever underestimate someone based on his age.

It turns out that Adam Goldstein is not just a gifted Mac programmer; he’s an absolutely amazing writer. Little by little, over the months, we corresponded. He’d send me a book proposal here, a Mac OS X tip for my book there. More than once, I emailed him to ask: “Do you swear to me that you didn’t have any parental input on this?”

Because his writing was everything I strive for in my own stuff, and too rarely find in other authors’ material: authoritative, clear, light-hearted, encouraging, beautifully structured.

And funny. Not funny as in forced, but funny as in sardonic, as in wry. After reading Adam’s definition of inheritance in Chapter 5, for example, you’ll never look at a Subaru the same way again.

Anyway, Adam grew on me like ivy. I eventually asked him to give my own Mac OS X: The Missing Manual