There have been a few mentions of our internal C++ library (codenamed Flint) around the web over the last week or two. Over the years we’ve had opportunities to work on some really interesting installation projects and data visualizations, and along the way we decided it would be a good idea to use some common bootstrapping, so that we can get the art side of things rolling a whole lot faster. That bootstrapping has turned into a somewhat larger scale library that makes it easy to do a whole lot of amazing things that used to take us a good deal of time to get working. It goes all the way from simply creating windows and draw-able contexts, to shaders, VBOs, and the once-feared (for me) Quaternion.

At the moment, Flint is very much in Alpha. We haven’t made any plans to release it to the public, but we also haven’t made any plans to not release it either (apologies for the double negative). We should have more news in the upcoming months, as we add necessary features and fine tune everything. We highly recommend checking out OpenFrameworks and Processing if you’re interested in doing high-end graphics or other interactive projects.

Oh, and if we do decide to release Flint, leave a comment and we’ll try to get you on the beta. Again, we still don’t know what the future holds, so no promises ;).

This past summer I was approached by the folks at Wiley Publishing to author Teach Yourself Visually Flash CS4 Professional. I accepted, unaware of the complexities involved in writing such a book, and having no relevant experience other than my knowledge of Flash. After many balmy picnic days spent indoors writing while the sun was shining, and nights soberly gazing over my laptop screen at an unopened bottle of Tuscan Syrah, I completed it.

It was totally worth the effort.

From wiley.com :

If you’re new to Flash and are looking for a good way to get started, I highly recommend it (of course). Or, if you work in another aspect of our business and want to gain a better understanding of what that guy on the 17th floor with the Elvis Costello glasses does for a living, it may be worth checking out too. Feedback is welcome. Many thanks to Jody, Sarah and the rest of the Wiley team.