Foreword
I should begin by confessing that I do not consider myself a world-class application programming interface (API) designer or software engineer. I do, however, consider myself an expert researcher in the areas of computer graphics and geometric modeling. It was in this line of work that I first met Martin at Pixar Animation Studios.
As a graphics researcher I was accustomed to writing mathematically sophisticated papers. I was also formally trained as a computer scientist at a major university and had written my share of code. Armed with this background, when I was presented with the opportunity to lead a group of software engineers working on a new generation of animation software for Pixar, I figured that it couldn't be any more ...