**By David Bressoud** **@dbressoud** ***As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month.*** FDWK refers to Ross Finney, Frank Demana, Bert Waits, and Dan Kennedy, the team of authors who for many years and multiple editions updated *Calculus: Graphical, Numerical, Algebraic*, one of the most popular textbooks for the College Board’s Advanced Placement Calculus. In 2013, after Finney’s death and with Demana and Waits in failing health, I was asked to join the authorship team to help prepare the fifth edition. This was not an immediate “yes”. While I had written several textbooks, these were all books that I wished I had had available as a student, books written to read with lots of historical context. Students in large calculus classes do not expect to read the textbook. I knew that mass market textbooks rely on exercises and examples. I also was leery of how much freedom I would have to shape this text.…