When we were writing the first edition of this book, we thought it would be a neat idea to frame the book's discussion of parallel programming around characters and events from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We figured this would make the book more fun for us to write, and more fun for you to read. Mr. Adams was kind enough to give us permission to do this, and many of our readers have let us know that they enjoyed the results. Sadly, as we were putting together the most recent version of this book, we heard the news of Douglas Adams' untimely death. Adams was, in Hitchhiker's Guide parlance, a "cool frood" who really knew where his towel was. We would like to dedicate this new version of our Hitchhiker's Guide to his memory.
(A frood, by the way, is a "really amazingly together
guy." To learn about the importance of towels, read The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)
-- The IBM(R) PE for AIX(R) Team