working on it. degrees and radians and pi, oh my!
jan 21, 2009
to get over the great disappointment of the cancellation of flash on the beach in miami, i hit the bookstore and proceeded to drown my sorrows in books and coffee. although i've been wanting to read w. e. b. griffin's 4th book of the presidential agent series, the shooters, what caught my eye on this particular day was a book i've passed several times in the past: foundation actionscript 3.0 animation - making things move!
after weeks of plowing my way through essential actionscript 3.0 and having all this theory just sitting in my head, waiting for some form of outlet, the foundation as3 animation book hit the right spot... with trigonometry! oh yeah, and best of all, it's right there in the first few chapters. not only does the author do a great job of making basic trig principles comprehensible to mere mortals, but he provides clear and easy to follow actionscript samples (well, it helps to have spent some time with essential actionscript 3.0 prior to picking this one up) so you can get your hands dirty right away and feel like a scripting genius... i know i do :)
now, i'm really getting into all this trigonometry stuff. i've always liked mathematics... ok, maybe not always, but it seems like it has been an eternity since i sat in my high school teacher's classroom, enthralled by her enthusiasm as she taught us algebra and geometry (ms. rensch, to this day, you totally rock!). i may not remember all those theorems and formulas she attempted to drill into us (wish i did!), but what has stayed with me is how accessible she made the material, enjoyable even. yep, to the point that many, many, MANY years later, i welcome the opportunity to delve deeper into related subjects (physics is next!)... amazed that i'm actually using this stuff in real life ;)