Our intent with this revision of the course is to improve the quality of the presentation and reduce the amount of new material in order to keep growth of the course notes to a minimum.
We would like to thank previous contributors to the course, whose work still lends strength and color to the course notes, sample programs, and presentation slides. We would also deeply like to thank our reviewers, without which the course notes could not have reached their high level of quality as reference material. We thank all the authors who allowed us to gather the reprints presented with the course notes. Finally, we thank from the bottom of our hearts the volunteers who provided sample code, illustrations, proofreading, and moral support.