In an email Sean Gillies called me out on the lack of good citations in my earlier post. I pleaded lack of sleep (notice how the number of URLs tails off quickly after the first 2 paragraphs!), but I’ll try to make up for it here. Instead of trying to cite all the individual posts, I’ll just say take a look at the relevant material in these blogs. You wouldn’t learn much from just reading a post or two anyway, so if you care, it’s worth the time to go through the lot.
Sean Gillies: import cartography
Charlie Savage: cfis
Chris Holmes: Into The Pudding

and then you’ll be properly prepared to enter the fray…