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 Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ is a crested porcupine. Crested porcupines (Hystrix cristata) are the largest porcupines on earth. Adults can weigh as much as 50 pounds, and their average length is between 25 and 30 inches. They have been known to live over 20 years while in captivity.

The crested porcupine is covered with black bristly fur. But running down the top of its head and neck is a crest of white bristly hairs that give way to an array of black and white spines that cover the animal's back, sides, and short tail. The short spines on the tail are hollow, which makes them rattle when shaken.

Highly adaptable creatures, crested porcupines can live in forests, plantations, rocky or mountainous areas, as well as deserts. They are found in Italy, Sicily, and along the Mediterranean coast of Africa as far south as Tanzania and northern Congo. They they shelter in caves, rock crevices, aardvark holes, or burrows they dig themselves. These burrows are often extensive and can be used for many years.

Crested porcupines live in monogamous pairs and form family groups sharing complex burrows. They are nocturnal and forage at night, moving along tracks or roads. They will often travel up to nine miles per night in search of food. They primarily eat roots, bark, and fallen fruit, but have a fondness, too, for cultivated root crops such as cassava, potatoes, and carrots. Although they are vegetarians, porcupine burrows are often littered with bones. They gnaw on the bones to sharpen their incisor teeth and to obtain calcium.

At birth, crested porcupines weigh only three percent of their mother's weight. When born, the young porcupine's quills are white and soft, although they start to become hard within hours. Their eyes are open and incisors are already crowning shortly after birth. After only one week, their spines begin to harden and, although small, they leave the nest.

When threatened, the crested porcupine raises and fans its quills to create the illusion of greater size. The crested porcupine will then stamp its feet, click its teeth, and growl or hiss while vibrating specialized quills that produce a characteristic rattle. The "rattle quills" on the end of the tail are hollow and open at the end, thus producing the most noise. If an enemy persists, the porcupine runs backward until it rams its attacker. Such attacks have been known to kill lions, leopards, hyenas, and humans-- and these predators have often been found with porcupine quills lodged in their throats. New quills grow in to replace lost ones.

Porcupine quills have long been a favorite ornament and good luck charm in Africa. The hollow rattle quills serve as musical instruments and were once used as containers for gold dust. Darren Kelly was the production editor, and Leanne Soylemez was the copyeditor for Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++. Derek Di Matteo, Reg Aubry, Claire Cloutier, and Jane Ellin provided quality control. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index. Jamie Peppard, Reg Aubry, Judy Hoer, and Mary Agner provided production support.

Emma Colby 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. This book was converted by Joe Wizda to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra, which uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia Free-Hand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Darren Kelly.