Where can I get information on the mechanics of fonts?

Following my line of "simple" questions: where can I find information about how fonts are made/rendered, and details like what hinting is?

Edit: I'd like more details about font rendering.

There is an open source font creation app fontforge, that has a very helpful help page describing many of the fundamentals of font construction:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/overview.html#TOC

and hinting specifically is here:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/hinting.html

Some more font building & hinting resources: iLT how to make a font part II — ❧ —Truetype Hinting — ❧ — Adobe opntype font development kit ⊃ Adobe opentype hinting information — ❧ —Hinting tutorial from the DejaVu designers

Rendering Articles: How does sub-pixel rendering work? — ❧ — Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering

And just for fun:

{source}

I Love Typography has some great info on fonts and font creation.