San Diego Flash Users Group: Flex Best Practices Presentation

To start 2009 off I gave my first presentation to an awesome group of Flash and Flex developers in San Diego. The presentation was created from the two articles I wrote in 2008 for the Adobe Developer Connection on Best Practices for Flex development. I’ve kept the Powerpoint presentation offline until now. Some of the content is a little dated but it’s probably still worth checking out. I may update this presentation with everything I’ve learned over the last year and for the upcoming changes coming in Flex 4, if time permits.

Download the Flex Best Practices Powerpoint Presentation here.

Java Programming II at UCSD

After wanting to learn more about Java for many years I decided to go back to school and take a structured class. This was the first time I’d set foot in a classroom since about 1998. It was through the UCSD Extension program but classes were held on the UCSD campus. It was pretty cool to walk around the campus and see the “college” life again after so long. In addition this was the first time I’d ever taken a class at a University, my previous college experience was at a community college. The instructor Kent Yang was really awesome and the class was killer! I learned a lot more about Java, OOP, Unit Testing and Design Patterns. This knowledge was all transferable into AS3/Flex so the experience was well worth the time and investment.

Check out the class details here.

The Flex Show Episode 71: OOP w/ Sean Moore

The Flex Show is awesome, simply stated. Jeffry Houser has done an excellent job with the podcast and I’ve been a fan for a few years now. One of my goals was to be a guest on The Flex Show and in 2009 in became a reality. I was able to put together a talk about OOP in regards to Flex and ActionScript development. The Java class helped solidify my knowledge of OOP so hopefully the talk will help others grasp some of the fundamental OO concepts. It was an honor to be on the show and I really appreciate the opportunity. Hopefully I can do another show sometime in the future. Maybe on the Mindset BCI work I’ve been doing lately.

You can listen to my talk on The Flex Show here.

Orange County Flex Users Group: Flex Best Practices Presentation

Laura Arguello was kind enough to invite me to give my Flex Best Practices preso at the OCFlex Users Group in March. This gave me a chance to visit the ASFusion office before the preso and hang out with Jeremy Saenz (aka The Flex Gangster) a bit as well. The crowd at OCFlex was really great and very patient as I got set up and had some trouble finding a room at the venue big enough for everyone. Thanks again to ASFusion and the OCFlex Users Group for inviting me to present. It was a great experience!

Technical Authoring for O’Reilly InsideRIA

2008 was a big year for me and authoring. I wrote articles for Adobe, Flash Magazine and O’Reilly’s InsideRIA. I continued the trend in 2009 by writing three featured articles for InsideRIA. Rich Tretola is one of the coolest guys I know and such a pleasure to work with. He helped me a ton with the articles I wrote this year through the good and the bad. Another person I really have to thank is Matt Chotin. His feedback on my Flex 4 article was a huge help and I really appreciate his time and input! You can check out the articles I wrote for InsideRIA below:

Round up of ActionScript 3.0 and Flex optimization techniques and practices

Overview of Flex 4 (Gumbo)

Decorator Design Pattern

Technical Reviews for Manning Publications

Reviewing books is great for a lot of reasons, it helps your writing skills, you get a preview of the books before they’re published and you get to contribute to the quality of the books being published. I do the reviews on a volunteer basis and really enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to do so. In 2009 I had the privilege of reviewing three books for Manning. They are all great titles and I encourage you to check them out.

Hello! Flex 4

Flex On Java

Flex 4 In Action

Present.ly AIR Client Development

This is one of the larger apps that I worked on completely by myself. Dave at Intridea got in touch with a request to help them refactor an existing AIR application to best practices. This project was one of the best projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on. The app was cool, the concept was cool and the client was cool. The Present.ly service is a private Twitter like service for businesses, if you haven’t already taken a minute to check it out I encourage you to do so. Another really awesome aspect of this project is that the codebase for the AIR app is totally open source and available for download on GIT Hub. I was able to use Cairngorm and Flex Unit on this project which I feel really helped the codebase and application’s stability and scalability. You can check out the codebase and the finished app by following the links below:

Present.ly AIR source code at GIT Hub

Present.ly AIR Client

Game Consulting and Development

A game development company contacted me for some assistence with consulting and development for a Flex and Flash based game. This was my first experience doing any game dev and it was really great. This was another awesome client. They are not public yet so there aren’t any links to share. I did want to note that game development is something that I’d like to do more of and hopefully 2010 will present more opportunities to do so.

Parsley

Learning Parsley was been on my radar for quite some time. I’ve been able to work with the framework quite a bit over the last few months and really like it so far. It’s quite a bit different than Cairngorm development but it offers more flexibility and is the preferred direction by many developers. IoC frameworks are all the rage and I am glad to be learning how to use them.

Presentation Model

This design pattern is great. It enables better unit testing for your applications and helps to decouple logic from views. Using the Presentation Model wasn’t totally clear at first but after working with it for a while I’m really beginning to like it. Having a bunch of code in MXML files wasn’t really ever all that appealing to me and using the Presentation Model really helps to separate this code out into pure AS3 classes.

ThinkGear Brain Computer Interface API

In an effort to end 2009 with a bang I released my ThinkGear API. This API enables the Neurosky Mindset Brain Computer Interface to communicate with AS3 based applications. So far I’ve been able to build a rough dashboard that uses my brainwaves as its data source. In addition I was able to tie my brainwaves into some AS3 based particle visualizations. You can see my demo video and learn more here. Control ActionScript with your mind!!!

Well here’s looking to 2010. I can’t believe it’s already been a decade since Y2K. It’s been a great decade for the Flash Platform we’ve all come a long way.

This was a great project to work on and the people at Intridea were just awesome to work with. They allowed me to do the development without any distraction or micro-management. The application already existed when they got in touch but they wanted to change a few things and also update the codebase to a more standards based approach since the app is open source. The codebase now uses Cairngorm and Flex Unit and is also fully commented for ASDoc. It also used Degrafa for some of the view. I’d really like to thank Dave at Intridea for the opportunity to work together, it was a great experience and I really enjoyed working on the application.

You can visit the page for the AIR client here. The app is available for download and you can also browse or download the source code from github.

Intridea also has several other applications for the Present.ly service including a really cool web based application, an iPhone app and an Android app to name a few.

Take a minute to check out the Present.ly service. It was mentioned as Best-Bet Collaboration Tool by Inc. Magazine and also won an WebWare 100 Editor’s Choice Award. Intridea is a pretty cool company doing some exciting things!! You can sign up for the Present.ly service here.

I’ll have to say this article was a labor of love. We made it through prefix and namespace issues, code updates and also various other updates to the product time line, etc. I really enjoyed working on the article and am very, very pleased that it’s finally been released into the wild. I’d like to thank Rich Tretola for his patience and help during the authoring process and would also like to send out a gigantic thanks to Matt Chotin for the time he provided to review the article. I’d also like to thank Deepa for all of the awesome content on the Adobe Open Source site, my article would not exist without it.

The new Flex 4 landscape is rich with features and improvements. Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst will empower a new sect of designers, devigners and deselopers into the world of Flex based development for the Flash Platform. I’m very excited to see what my Flash brethren bring to the table using Catalyst. I’m also very excited about the Unit Testing automation that’s available and many other developer centric updates that have been included in the Flex 4 framework and in Flash Builder.

When I first started looking into the code for how the new Spark component architecture is structured I got all warm and fuzzy. Spark totally separates the component logic from the view markup which should really standardize component development and also enable a whole new level of skinning and UX for Flex application development.

Anyone looking to upgrade their Flex 3 applications to Flex 4 please get in touch. I’m really excited to start talking about the possibilities of upgrading and refactoring to the new framework. I’m currently working on a Flex 4 application example that makes use of Cairngorm and the new version of Flex Unit so check back for that soon.

Here’s the link to my article, I hope it provides a decent overview of what’s available in Flex 4:
http://www.insideria.com/2009/06/overview-of-flex-4-gumbo.html

It should be an exciting week and the buzz about the beta release is already getting crazy! Here are a couple of important links:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex4sdk_whatsnew.html
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/

http://www.ashorten.com/2009/06/01/flash-builder-and-flash-catalyst-betas-now-on-labs/

Happy Flexing!!!

Cairngorm
Cairngorm is the lightweight micro-architecture for Rich Internet Applications built in Flex or AIR. A collaboration of recognized design patterns, Cairngorm exemplifies and encourages best-practices for RIA development advocated by Adobe Consulting, encourages best-practice leverage of the underlying Flex framework, while making it easier for medium to large teams of software engineers deliver medium to large scale, mission-critical Rich Internet Applications.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/cairngorm/Cairngorm

Download: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/opensource/cairngorm/cairngorm2_2_1-bin.zip

Flex Unit
FlexUnit is a unit testing framework for Flex and ActionScript 3.0 applications and libraries. It mimics the functionality of JUnit, a Java unit testing framework, and comes with a graphical test runner.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexunit/FlexUnit

Download: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/opensource/flexunit/flexunit0_9.zip

Subclipse
Subclipse is an Eclipse Team Provider plug-in providing support for Subversion within the Eclipse IDE. The software is released under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0 open source license.

http://subclipse.tigris.org/

Eclipse update site URL: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x

Eclipse
Eclipse is a multi-language software development platform comprising an IDE and a plug-in system to extend it. It is written primarily in Java and is used to develop applications in this language and, by means of the various plug-ins, in other languages as well – C, C++, COBOL, Python, Perl, PHP and more.

http://www.eclipse.org

Download: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

ASDoc
ASDoc is a command-line tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML pages from the classes in your Adobe® Flex® application. The Adobe Flex team uses the ASDoc tool to generate the Adobe Flex Language Reference.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=asdoc_1.html

Flex Ant Tasks
The Adobe® Flex® Ant tasks provide a convenient way to build your Flex projects using an industry-standard build management tool. If you are already using Ant projects to build Flex applications, you can use the Flex Ant tasks to replace your exec or java commands that invoke the mxmlc and compc compilers. If you are not yet using Ant to build your Flex applications, you can take advantage of these custom tasks to quickly and easily set up complex build processes for your Flex applications.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=anttasks_1.html

Installation: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=anttasks_2.html#224215

Degrafa
Degrafa is a declarative graphics framework open source licensed under MIT.

http://www.degrafa.org

Download: http://www.degrafa.org/code/

as3corelib
The corelib project is an ActionScript 3 Library that contains a number of classes and utilities for working with ActionScript 3. These include classes for MD5 and SHA 1 hashing, Image encoders, and JSON serialization as well as general String, Number and Date APIs.

http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/

Download: http://as3corelib.googlecode.com/files/as3corelib-.92.1.zip

Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices
Coding standards for writing open-source Flex framework components in ActionScript 3. Adhering to these standards makes the source code look consistent, well-organized, and professional.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Coding+Conventions

Flex Language Reference
The Flex 3.3 Language Reference provides syntax and usage information for every element in the ActionScript™ language. It documents all elements in Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe® AIR™ that are officially supported by Adobe.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/

Flex best practices – Part 1: Setting up your Flex project article

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/best_practices_pt1.html

Flex best practices – Part 2: Development practices

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/best_practices_pt2.html

If you would still like the Powerpoint preso email me and I’ll send it along.

There was an example application that I wanted to share as well. I’ll post it on this blog in the very near future. It utilizes many of the practices and standards covered in my presentation and the articles. I’d like to provide a little info or blog post at least along with the example…soon….

I’ll be giving this same presentation on Flex Best Practices in March at the OC Flex Users Group. Thanks to ASFusion for the invite!!

Thanks again to everyone who made it out last night. The audience was really great and had great questions and a great discussion. I appreciate everyone’s time and feedback. Thanks to Dolores for all of the help getting ready for the preso too!!

Here is a short passage from the article:

“In this article, you will learn how to manage assets so that your application’s dependencies will be well organized. I will also discuss widely accepted ActionScript 3.0, MXML, and CSS coding standards currently being practiced by the Flex development community. I’ll review ASDoc, a tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML from your application’s source code. In the application architecture section of this article I’ll show techniques that you can use to help define the blueprints for your application’s foundation. I will cover some of the application development frameworks that are available to Flex developers and discuss when it makes sense to use them and when it does not. Lastly, I will cover best practices for unit testing so that you can test your codebase and ensure the code will perform consistently.”

List of 31 Flex APIs, Libraries, Components and Tools
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/2007/08/21/list-of-31-flex-apis-libraries-components-and-tools/

List of 22 ActionScript 3.0 API’s
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/2007/08/13/list-of-22-actionscript-30-apis/

ActionScript 3.0 APIs from Eric Feminella
ActionScript 3.0 APIs developed specifically for Adobe Flex and AIR.
http://www.ericfeminella.com/blog/actionscript-3-apis/

ASMailer
The ASMailer class sends emails using an SMTP server. ASMailer sends mail without the need of a server side language like PHP or JSP.
http://asmailer.riaforge.org/

Away3d 2.1
Away3D is a realtime 3d engine for flash in ActionScript 3.0
http://away3d.com/away3d-21-demos-docs

Bullet Graph
A good way to show actual time spent vs. the estimated time for a project
http://agileui.blogspot.com/2008/05/bullet-graph-free-flex-component.html

Degrafa
Degrafa : Declarative Graphics Framework
http://www.degrafa.com/

Desuade Partigen
Desuade Partigen is an extension for Adobe Flash which lets you create realistic vector and raster particle effects (such as fire, smoke, sparkles), without requiring you to do any complex coding.
http://desuade.com/products/partigen/

EasyMVC
EasyMVC is an event driven MVC framework which focuses on flexibility while not getting in the developers way.
http://projects.simb.net/easyMVC/

Five3D
vector-based 3d rendering framework by Mathieu Badimon – has just received a significant update, bringing it to version 2.1. New features this version brings: Back Face Culling, Flat Shading, Z-sorting, Space Drawing functions, Bitmap3D class, Video3D class, Sprite2D Class, Letter Spacing, Text Width
http://five3d.mathieu-badimon.com/

Flash Player 10 API Documentation!
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_as3langref_052008.zip

Flex 3 Performance and Memory Profiling
“Memory profiling lets you look at objects being created, take snapshots and compare them. Performance profiling allows snapshots for looking at cumulative and internal time.”
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:_Performance_and_Memory_Profiling

Flex 3 RSLs
Use Flex 3 runtime-shared-libraries (RSLs) to reduce the size of your applications and thereby reduce the time required to download the application. RSLs are just SWF files whose code is used as a shared library between different application SWF files.
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:Flex_3_RSLs

Flex 4 States syntax changes
Flex 4 will target all of the legacy usage scenarios of classic Flex states functionality (stateful components, states as application “views” or “pages”, effects and transitions between view states, etc.). This document outlines what is primarily a syntax change for the existing functionality.
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Enhanced+States+Syntax

Flex and Flex Developers Magazine
http://www.ffdmag.com/

Flex “Designer Scroll Bars”
“designer scroll bars” – skinny little tone on tone scroll bars that have no scroll arrows
http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/05/designer_scroll.html

FlexMDI
flexmdi is a robust, extensible Multiple Document Interface framework for Adobe Flex.
http://code.google.com/p/flexmdi/

Flex Resource Bundles
What’s a resource bundle? It’s a set of values that you externalize from your source code in a properties file. And it can be swapped out at compile time or, with Flex 3, at runtime. Think of it like a style sheet for values.
http://blog.extends.eventdispatcher.org/roger/introduction-to-flex-resource-bundles/

FOAM
FOAM is a two-dimensional rigid body physics engine written in ActionScript 3.0.
http://code.google.com/p/foam-as3/

Go3D
Cool Tweening Engine, the Go3D which give you more control over moving objects in 3d space.
http://code.google.com/p/goplayground/source/checkout

GoogleMap Flex Component
A new component for Flex Developers who want to add more control or be very well organized.
http://www.igorcosta.org/?p=140

Guttershark
Guttershark is an Actionscript 3 library that pushes some simple conventions on you, only to make you faster as a developer. It’s a pattern for Flash development that cuts out a huge amount of time, especially when you’re in the first stages of development.
http://www.guttershark.net/

ILOG Elixir
A suite of professional user interface controls that gives developers a rich collection of innovative and interactive data display components. It includes ready-to-use schedule displays, map displays, dials, gauges, 3D and radar charts, a treemap chart and organization charts.
http://www.ilog.com/products/ilogelixir/

LoadingImage
Takes a regular Flex Image component, and adds a self contained ProgressBar to it to show its own loading progress.
http://www.munkiihouse.com/?p=135

Logger Library and RIALogger
The Logger component provides classes to that abstract the Flex 2 Log and logging Target classes. It provides a simple approach to logging messages with category information and provide hooks into multiple targets. It supports the following logging targets by default: RIALoggerTarget, TraceTarget (trace()), XPanelTarget, and FlexTracePanelTarget. The LogController also provides functionality to allow you to setup your own custom logging Target.
http://renaun.com/blog/flex-components/rialogger/

Mate
Mate is a tag-based, event-driven Flex framework.
http://mate.asfusion.com/index.cfm

Merapi
Merapi is a new project that is a framework for connecting AIR to java at the desktop.
http://adamflater.blogspot.com/search/?q=merapi

MinimalComps: Minimal AS3 UI Component Set
CheckBox, PushButton, HSlider, VSlider, InputText, ProgressBar, RadioButton, ColorChooser (text input only) and Panel.
http://www.bit-101.com/minimalcomps/

OpenFlux
OpenFlux is an open-source Flex component framework which allows developers to create radically new and custom Flex components.
http://code.google.com/p/openflux/

PeekPanel
Cool way to hide options or preferences in an application. It borrows the look and feel from the FlexBook/PageFlip components already out there, but instead of simulating a book, this is more of a way to use the “flip” to hide other components.
http://www.billdwhite.com/wordpress/?p=29

PlexiGlass
http://www.bobjim.com/category/plexiglass/

Share (Document Services API)
Online service provided by Adobe that allows you to share, publish, and organize documents online.
http://code.google.com/p/as3sharelib/downloads/list

Slide
Slide is an application framework for projects built in Flex 2 or 3. Using familiar design patterns, Slide provides a robust MVC structure, view state management decoupled from view implementation and a flexible approach to model and controller access, eliminating need for singleton classes.
http://code.google.com/p/flex-slide/

Sandy 3.0.2
Sandy is an intuitive and user-friendly 3D open-source library.
http://www.flashsandy.org/versions/3.0

Sprouts
Sprouts is an open-source, cross-platform project generation and configuration tool for ActionScript 2, ActionScript 3, Adobe AIR and Flex projects.
http://www.projectsprouts.org/

Universal Mind Extensions for Adobe Cairngorm
Universal Mind has extended the “classic” Adobe 2.2.x Cairngorm version to provide many productivity and maintenance enhancements.
http://code.google.com/p/flexcairngorm/

Video Tutorial on Compiling for Flash Player 10
http://theflashblog.com/?p=383

Virtual Space (AS 3.0) V. 1.0
The Virtual Space is an AS3 component that can be used to create virtual-tour type visualizations very easily. Simply specify 6 images to be used for top, bottom, left, right, front, and back. Then, position the camera, set the initial view, and specify interaction parameters.
http://www.afcomponents.com/components/virtual_space_as3/

2007 was an AWESOME year for Flex and AIR. 2008 should continue this trend. Here are several different technologies and other items I plan on monitoring going into 2008. Some of these are bleeding edge, others are fundamentals which we’ve been studying for years.

“I’m sure that Flex skills will be one of the hottest skills to have in 2008.” – Yakov Fain

ActionScript 3.0
Essential ActionScript 3.0
Personally I plan on digging into the nitty-gritty details of the language. This includes refining knowledge of Errors, Events, Exceptions, Interfaces, Bitmap API, Display API and Namespaces to name a few. I’ll be reading Essential ActionScript 3.0 to do so.

Adobe AIR
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
The first full release of AIR should be coming in 2008. With the rapid growth and massive interest already I cannot even speculate what 08 will bring for this exciting, young technology.

Adobe Astro
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Astro
“The next major release of Flash Player, codename “Astro,” was first previewed at Adobe MAX 2007. The preview highlighted a few of the new capabilities the Flash Player team is working on for Astro: advanced text layout, simple 3D effects, and custom filters, blend modes and effects.”

Adobe BlazeDS
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/blazeds/
http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/blazeds/html/index.html
“BlazeDS is the server-based Java remoting and web messaging technology that enables developers to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time to Adobe® Flexâ„¢ and Adobe AIRâ„¢ applications for more responsive rich Internet application (RIA) experiences.”

API’s
http://programmableweb.com/apis/directory/1?sort=date
I always keep an eye on this area of Programmable Web for new ideas for applications and mashups.

ASDoc
Using ASDoc
“ASDoc is a command-line tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML pages from the classes in your Flex application. The Adobe Flex team uses the ASDoc tool to generate the Adobe Flex 2 Language Reference.”

Brain-computer interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-computer_interfaces
http://www.techrivet.com/2007/07/23/NeuroSkyMovingBeyondConceptBCI.aspx
“brain-computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain-machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a human or animal brain (or brain cell culture) and an external device.” The WII in Flash was cool, let’s see one of these plugged into the Flash Platform!!!

Cairngorm
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Cairngorm
http://www.cairngormdocs.org/
“The Cairngorm Microarchitecture is a lightweight yet prescriptive framework for rich Internet application (RIA) development.”

Cloud Computing
http://tnerd.com/2007/10/14/cloud-computing-the-next-big-thing-is-cloud/
Cloud_computing_wp_final_8Oct.pdf
“is a computing paradigm shift where computing is moved away from personal computers or an individual server to a “cloud” of computers. Users of the cloud only need to be concerned with the computing service being asked for, as the underlying details of how it’s achieved are hidden”

Design Patterns
http://www.javacamp.org/designPattern/
http://www.exciton.cs.rice.edu/JAvaResources/DesignPatterns/default.htm
ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns: Object Oriented Programming Techniques
“In software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations”

E4X
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/training_e4x.html
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-357.htm
E4X: A new approach to XML processing
http://www.w3schools.com/e4x/default.asp
“E4X offers a natural, fluent set of language constructs for manipulating XML. In contrast to traditional XML-parsing APIs, XML with E4X performs like a native data type of the language. E4X streamlines the development of applications that manipulate XML by drastically reducing the amount of code needed.”

EcmaScript 4.0
http://www.ecmascript.org/
http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/evolutionary-programming-tutorial.pdf
Microsoft trying to derail ECMAScript 4?
“ECMA-262 Edition 4 is the next-generation version of ECMAScript being developed currently by the ECMA TG1 working group.” This space is heating up, keep a watch on this one I have a feeling this is going to shape the future of the web in major ways.

Flash Media Server
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver
“an enterprise-grade data and media server from Adobe Systems Inc. This server works together with the Flash Player runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIA’s.”

Flex 3 & Flex 4
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/
Keep an eye on Adobe Labs. Flex 3 will be coming out in 2008 and who knows we may even see at least some more talk about or get to provide additional input on the future of Flex.

Flex Custom Components
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/creating_components.html
Flex Component Kit Alpha for Flex 2.0.1
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/creating_as3_components.html
I think creating custom components for Flex is going to increase in demand in 2008.

Flex Performance and Memory Profiling
Performance and Memory Profiling
“Memory profiling lets you look at objects being created, take snapshots and compare them. Performance profiling allows snapshots for looking at cumulative and internal time.”

Flex Persistent Framework Caching
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2007/08/player_update_p.cfm

Flex Refactoring
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/videos/refactoringdemo/

Flex Skinning
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_skins.html
http://www.scalenine.com/resources.html
“If you want to redesign the appearance of the Flex components more radically, you can do so by creating a new set of skins for the Flex components that completely replace the built-in Halo Aeon theme.”

Hibernate
http://www.hibernate.org/
“Hibernate is a powerful, high performance object/relational persistence and query service. Hibernate lets you develop persistent classes following object-oriented idiom – including association, inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and collections.”

Hydra / Adobe Image Foundation
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIF_Toolkit
“The Adobe Image Foundation (AIF) Toolkit preview release includes a high-performance graphics programming language that Adobe is developing for image processing, codenamed Hydra, and an application to create, compile and preview Hydra filters and effects.”

Java 7
https://jdk7.dev.java.net/
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/08/09/looking-ahead-to-java-7.html

Java 6
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/WJB-110A.xml
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/SL-275-SE6.xml
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/CX-310-065.xml
Here are a few links with training recommended for Java certification. Might be something to think about for the future.

JavaFX
http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/index.jsp
“The JavaFX product family delivers the ability to create interactive content, applications and services from the desktop to mobile devices to the living room.”

Microformats
http://microformats.org/
“Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.” Microformats are being used in conjunction with Adobe AIR.

Occasionally Connected Apps
Monitoring network connectivity
One of the draws to using Adobe AIR is the ability to monitor network connectivity. This is one area I want to work with and research a bit more in 2008.

OOP
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=1590598458
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/articles/oop_as3.html
“Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses “objects” and their interactions to design applications and computer programs. It is based on several techniques, including encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. It was not commonly used in mainstream software application development until the early 1990s. Many modern programming languages now support OOP.”

Papervision 2.0
http://blog.papervision3d.org/
http://papervision3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
http://blog.zupko.info/?p=76
“Features: Faster! ShadeMaterials, Shaders, ASCollada (animation support), Frustrum Culling, Multiple Viewports, Render to Scene and more. More features expected soon.”

Prisim
http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/
“Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.”

Refactoring
http://www.refactoring.com/
“Refactoring is a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Its heart is a series of small behavior preserving transformations. Each transformation (called a ‘refactoring’) does little, but a sequence of transformations can produce a significant restructuring.”

Spring
http://www.springframework.org/
http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=IntrotoSpring25
“The Spring Framework is probably best known for offering features required to effectively create complex business applications outside of the programming models that historically have been dominant in the industry. Next to that it is also credited for introducing previously unfamiliar functionalities into today’s mainstream development practices, even beyond the Java platform.”

SQLite
http://www.sqlite.org/
http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/
“SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine.” This is used in google gears and Adobe AIR. Firefox also uses SQLite.

Struts
http://struts.apache.org/
“An open source framework for building Servlet/JSP based web applications based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design paradigm.”

Subversion
http://subversion.tigris.org/
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn-book.pdf
“Subversion (SVN) is a version control system initiated in 2000 by CollabNet Inc. It allows users to keep track of changes made to any type of electronic data, typically source code, web pages or design documents.”

Surface Computing
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
“Surface computing is the use of a specialized computer GUI in which traditional GUI elements are replaced by intuitive, everyday objects. Instead of a keyboard and mouse, the user interacts directly with a touch-sensitive screen, replicating the familiar hands-on experience of everyday object manipulation.”

Swing
Java Swing By Marc Loy
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/
“Swing is a widget toolkit for Java. It is part of Sun Microsystems’ Java Foundation Classes (JFC) — an API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for Java programs. Swing includes GUI widgets such as text boxes, buttons, split-panes, and tables.”

Thermo
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Thermo
“Thermo” is an upcoming Adobe product that makes it easy for designers to create rich Internet application UIs. Thermo allows designers to build on familiar workflows to visually create working applications that easily flow into production and development.

Technological singularity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
“There is no clear definition, but usually the Singularity is meant as a future time when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot even imagine what will happen from our present perspective, and when humanity will become posthumanity.”

TouchLib
http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/touchlib/
“Touchlib is our library for creating multi-touch interaction surfaces. It handles tracking blobs of infrared light for you and sends your programs multitouch events, such as ‘finger down’, ‘finger moved’, and ‘finger released’. It includes a configuration app and a few demos to get you started. It interaces with most major types of webcams and video capture devices”

UML
http://www.uml.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language
“In the field of software engineering, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standardized specification language for object modeling. UML is a general-purpose modeling language that includes a graphical notation used to create an abstract model of a system, referred to as a UML model.”

Unit Testing
http://code.google.com/p/as3flexunitlib/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/unit_testing.html
“Unit testing is a procedure used to validate that individual units of source code are working properly. A unit is the smallest testable part of an application. In procedural programming a unit may be an individual program, function, procedure, etc., while in object-oriented programming, the smallest unit is a method; which may belong to a base/super class, abstract class or derived/child class.”

WebKit
http://webkit.org/
http://webkit.org/blog/
“WebKit is an open source web browser engine.” This is the browser used within Adobe AIR.

Cairngen - Free
http://www.ericfeminella.com/blog/cairngen
This tool provides AS3 code generation for Cairngorm based Flex projects. You’ll need to have Ant installed and know how to run and modify Ant scripts so there is a barrier of entry here. It would be great if Cairngen had a GUI.

VASGen – Free
http://selfmummy.com/vasgen
There are a few issues with VASGen, like no package name support, but the AS3 code generation is pretty good. This tool is definitely worth checking out, especially considering the price. If you aren’t planning on using Cairngorm and you want a free tool this might be the solution.

UMLet – Free
http://www.umlet.com
This app can be set up as a Flex/Eclipse plug in. Pretty cool, no code generation from what I could tell though.

Enterprise Architect – $239-$135
http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea.html
At one point I had a trial copy of EA that was generating AS3, if memory serves me it did take a few hours of changing settings and research to get the code gen working though. Unfortunately the current price tag is out of my reach so no further information is available.

Visual Paradigm – $70-$59
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpuml/personaledition.jsp
Visual Paradigm claims AS3 generation but I’ve seen some concerns, and have my own (that doesn’t look like AS3 to me, notice the lack of a package?).