Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Developing ASP Components, Second Edition, is an asp, which is a term applied to various venomous snakes, including the depicted asp viper (Vipera aspis) of Europe as well as the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje), thought to have been the means of Cleopatra's suicide.

Needing to eat at least 50 of their body weight in food per week, European asp vipers hunt by lying in wait for approaching prey. After grabbing and biting a small rodent or other prey, they release it and wait several minutes for it to stop moving; the generally sluggish viper rarely chases prey. Vipers know their home territory very well, which allows quick escape from their asp-kicking natural enemies, serpent eagles, and hedgehogs. This trick hasn't helped them escape from their greatest threat, the expansion of human civilization, which frequently wipes out large sections of their territory.

The chemical composition of asp viper venom can vary from one population to the next, hampering initial antivenin development until 1896, but few viper bite fatalities occur in Europe today. Leanne Soylemez was the production editor and proofreader for Developing ASP Components, Second Edition. Norma Emory was the copyeditor, Mary Anne Weeks Mayo and Colleen Gorman provided quality control, and John Bickelhaupt wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Clifford Dyer converted the files from Microsoft Word to FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Nancy Wolfe Kotary.