Getting Started with Arduino and Flex/AS3 Development (by: Sean Moore)

This presentation will explain what the Arduino is, how it’s used and why it’s used. The session will cover how and where to obtain the hardware and software needed for Arduino development with and without Flex and AS3. It will also demonstrate a basic LED blinking example, a temperature sensor example and a PIR motion sensor example. The session will also explain how to get as3glue and serproxy working on your system to enable Arduino circuit development with Flex and AS3.

Here’s the live recording (Connect session) of the preso

Here’s the PPT of the slides and a PDF of the slides

Here’s the schematic to build the PIR Motion Sensor circuit

Here’s also a Fritzing schematic for the PIR Motion Sensor circuit. You can get Fritzing here.

My presentation can be found here in the original listing on the FlexMania site for proof and/or historical purposes: http://www.flexmania.com.br/gravacoes.php

Oh, and a MASSIVE, MASSIVE shout to Igor Costa for inviting me to present at the conference and THANK YOU to everyone who attended!!!!

Happy Arduino’ing everyone!!!

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?
At the earliest was LOGO on a TRS-80 when I was about 8 or so. After that I would hack a little BASIC on my buddy’s C-64. I took the PASCAL prerequisite in high school, but generally stopped messing around with code around the same time. I fancied myself an artist and chose to go that direction around my sophomore year of high school. Computers were part of that, just not at the code level.

It was several years after that when I started to get back into hacking around with code. The modern internet came into life and I was making web pages and doing that sort of thing. I tried to get into Flash pretty early, but it just frustrated me with the timeline. I was a 3d artist professionally for 13 years, and towards the end of that I got really into writing MaxScript and event a little DOTNET to extend 3dsMax.

When I decided I was going to “be a programmer” I was working as a graphic artist. My “programmer” infuriated me on a regular basis. I’d pressure him to come up with programmatic solutions to ease boring repetitive tasks and he would tell me “you are a designer, just draw the picture I tell you to draw” – I’m a pretty stubborn guy. This flipped the “go fuck yourself” switch in my brain and I spent the next year learning how to code so that I could solve a particular problem. So, you might say I started programming as a result of a grudge.

This was at the time that AS3 and Flex 2 were coming onto the scene. I would wait for the next chapter of Essential ActionScript 3 to be added to the rough cut. I remember reading the events chapter over and over with a big flashing WTF over my head. That book was an incredible eye opener for me. I remember clearly reading the chapter describing classes and finally having that audible *CLICK* in my head and ”getting it”. Still trying to get it, but once I was over that hump it all sort of started coming together.

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
The gig where I acquired the aforementioned grudge was a Flash project. I fell in love with Flex 2 in beta and started messing with Apollo (Air) as soon as I could get my hands on it. I quit that job and went back to 3d graphics with a small company that I had worked for in the past. I convinced the owner that I could build him a kickass task/project management too with Air, and he let me. It is still running like a champ to this day. That code is so embarrassing to look at, but it runs relatively error free and still provides a ton of value to that company. I approached it as “building helper robots” to make mundane tasks easier for all the people that worked there. I love that concept to this day and my favorite programming is when I get to alleviate some sort of day to day crap from somebody’s job so they can focus on stuff that matters.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
Sometimes. I wish I was in a situation that would afford strict TDD, but it is a challenge to even get appropriate unit testing in play, much less driving development with them. It is a goal that I am working towards.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?
I basically learned how to code using PureMVC. Still love it and is the reason I love Robotlegs as well. Robotlegs is an evolution of PureMVC.

I’ve used Cairngorm, Swiz, and Parsley too. They all have their bright shining points of kick ass. I’ve found that, as a consultant, teams can dig themselves deep dark holes with any of the frameworks available. I don’t mind any of them, to be honest. What I like is clear and consistent development.

I think PureMVC and Robotlegs provide a solid roadmap for developing applications via the documentation and best practices. This sort of prescription can be a solid advantage to a team.

Swiz and Parsley are both amazing pieces of kit, but they don’t provide much in the way of guidance as to how to build an app. This is killer if you have the team in place to design an architecture, but I’ve seen it go horribly wrong too. The Cairngorm 3 guidelines are a great place to build a foundation from. There is good advice in those pages irrespective of your chosen framework.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?
I’m a fan of native in this space. I enjoy Objective-C quite a lot. I think Adobe is doing some great things though, and look forward to seeing how it plays out.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
IntelliJ ftw.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
I enjoyed 360Flex this year. I gave a talk on Parsley.

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?
I’ve been heavily involved with the Robotlegs project. I just finished a book on the subject with Stray (@stray_and_ruby) called Actionscript Developers Guide to Robotlegs: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920021216

Recently I’ve joined the Spoon project as President of the foundation. I’m extremely excited about the goals of Spoon and look forward to seeing how the community can manage to help steer Flex as a true open-source project with Adobe.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
I don’t think DHTML ever went anywhere. Browsers have certainly improved and I am a huge fan of some of the innovative kit that is being birthed. Node.js and CoffeeScript are particularly exciting.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
4.5 today. There is still a lot of 3.5 code out there.

what other programming languages do you know/use?
I dig Python a lot.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
I read.
I try to raise my 4 home educated kids.
I like competitive cooking shows. Masterchef Australia is awesome (the American version is a shitty pale shade of gray in comparison). It is my sports.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
twitter: http://twitter.com/jhooks
spoon project: http://www.spoon.as
Did I mention the book? http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920021216

if you were trapped alone on an island forever and you could take one thing with… what would it be?

Solar Powered Kindle

what is your favorite animal?
Wombat

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
That’s really good question I started to play around with Flash back in high school not sure what version it was but back them it was under Macromedia and it was all about creating little animations and experimenting no one really new what OOP was just gotoAndPlay.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
I’m really not sure why I would ever want to do Test-driven development, I see the benefits in it but for my development style I think it would over complicate things. I think you should create cool things and worry about the rest later.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?
I have played around with a number frameworks but the ones that I used for real projects are PureMVC, RobotLegs and for games PushButton engine and Flixel. I really like RobotLegs and it seems to be the one that I’m using the most lately but I do think PureMVC has some advantages over RobotLegs.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?
Yes I created my first app US.Gov.Index with Flash in the pre release program it was more of a demo app to learn but I just re did it from the ground up using the Flex Mobile I’m really happy with the outcome I also have my first client project which will be done using Flex Mobile. You can view info on the app on my site – http://www.almogdesign.net/portfolio/us-gov-index/

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
I use Flash Builder 4.5 for Flash and Flex the only plugin that I have is Flex Formatter, I’m currently working a lot in PHP, JS and HTML/CSS so using NetBeans which is amazing.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?
I use the Flash IDE to create assets .swc’s the standard CS5 collection Photoshop, Illustrator and Balsamiq Mockups for wireframing.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?
So I follow a lot of people on Twitter and every now and then check out a number of blogs Smashing Magazine is a big one but mostly check out links that are shared, I’m also very active on Google+ which I’m finding is much better then Twitter.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
I spoke at Flash Israel 2011 not sure I can count that as I organized the event I also spoke at the annual GameIS event and Game Uncon event both in Israel I have had the opportunity to speak at smaller events from user groups to small tech events, which is great and why I’m very active in the community. I try to attend just about everything locally especially the games and stat up events.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?
I’m currently working on a really cool project/start-up for game developers called Scoreoid its an advanced web platform for leaderboards and game management I’m in private beta and the feedback has been really great. You can check it out at www.scoreoid.net

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
The never ending question, the truth is that I started off as a JS/web developers that was my main focus in school and was my first job at waves.com, I got into Flash because JS, HTML and CSS was limited back then and when I say back then that’s not to long ago. For me code is just syntax its all about choosing the right tool for the right job I’m not a Flash developer but an interactive developer. Lately I have been working in PHP for Scoreoid which has been fun if tomorrow I need to code in JS that’s fine. I love Flash and don’t see myself not using it I also like the idea that somethings well not be done in Flash anymore while others will be.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
It really depends on the project old project are 3/3.5 while new ones are 4.5

what other programming languages do you know/use?
That’s a great question this last year I have been learning noting but languages instead of creating cool stuff I think at some point learning every new language is a waste of time find what you like and stick with it who cares what everyone is says I’m getting pretty tired with all the link baiting posts. I personally code in AS3, Flex, PHP and basic web stuff JS, HTML/CSS which I really don’t consider that complex but basic stuff every programmer should learn. I can code a little native C#, Java and Objective C but don’t consider myself as a developer for those languages even thought I ported US.Gov.Index to Windows Phone 7 native and yes Microsoft paid me to do it.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
Lately been working out I also scuba dive and go spear finishing. I attend pretty much every community event, meetup or conference I can get to and there are a lot in Israel especially the start up events which are always amazing.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
I have a blog which is not very active hope to fix that soon – http://www.almogdesign.net/blog/
And you can find me on Twitter @almogdesign or Google+ http://bit.ly/oEGHlD

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

I began using Flash here and there in 1999/2000 with Macromedia Flash 4. Previous to that, I was mainly doing straight HTML and a bunch of design work; Photoshop, Illustrator, 35mm photography, and photo compositing. What drew me to Flash was that I could take pieces from all of those areas and use them together in a meaningful way. I think everyone coming to Flash from that angle remembers the first simple animation they created and how outstanding the feeling of publishing your first swf was. It was magical for me.

I actually didn’t get involved in Flex until Flex 2 and ActionScript 3.0. I was doing a lot of work with AS2 before this using Flash Professional, and AS3 was made available in Flex Builder before Flash because it was built into the SDK. I tried out Flex but it didn’t click for me- so I used the Flex SDK to write AS3 using FlashDevelop for a time. This is how I learned AS3. By the time AS3 was available in Flash Pro… I was already set

What eventually “forced” me into Flash Builder and Flex was the ability to write AIR applications and the tooling built into Flex Builder 3. I was using the Apollo alphas and had a few projects at the university where I was pushing the technology. The first AIR project we deployed was actually an Apollo project a day before – so we were really on the bleeding edge! Anyhow- using Flex for AIR apps got me to appreciate the framework for use in other projects… saw the obvious benefits of using Flex Builder over Flash Pro for writing code… Flex framework makes a lot of layout and structural underpinnings so simple – so I stuck with it. I do go to Flash Pro for certain things now and again, but Flash Builder and Flex are primary for me now.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

No… I’m not. I understand the benefits and have made numerous attempts to integrate the practice into my workflow, but as it stands now I’m just a total failure with TDD! With most things though, I find that my initial set of attempts are often crash-and-burn exercises. At some point, it will all come into place and I just have to work toward that moment. The problem right now is that much of what I do is systems maintenance and planning – so am not as actively involved in any solid development starters at the moment.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

The Adobe Flex Framework

Well… I’ve definitely looked at other frameworks and micro-architectures. A lot of people seem to like RobotLegs and I’ve done some beginner exercises with that to get concepts down – but have not attempted anything in a real project yet.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

Yes. Mostly experiments for projects like my “Flash Development for Android Cookbook”, but have also written some applications for Android that are available in the Market. These include; Sketch-N-Save, AXNA Feed Reader, My Shit-List!, Transient Recorder, and others. I’m in the middle of writing a mobile Flex application for the university right now which should (eventually) be available across multiple platforms. It taps into the university media management system to provide users with direct access to video, image, and audio materials along with associated metadata records for their mobile devices. It’s in beta for Android, and once we get that solid will look at publishing for iOS and perhaps event BlackBerry Tablet OS. We’ll see what use may dictate.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

Primarily Flash Builder – no plugins. I also launch Flash Professional from time to time to work on legacy projects and perform specific functionality that is better suited to that environment. I have used FDT and FlashDevelop on occasion… and as mentioned before, actually learned AS3 on FlashDevelop.
what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

I use the entire Adobe Creative Suite for my work. Well, almost the entire suite. Also tools like Lightroom for my photography. Lightroom is awesome.

With Flex projects, I’ll often use a graphics package like Photoshop or whatnot to create any image assets needed, sometimes will design skinning elements in that or Illustrator/Fireworks depending upon my mood. I do my FXG work within Flash Catalyst and copy/paste into Flash Builder. XML, HTML, and such usually gets edited in Dreamweaver. Audition for audio assets, video stuff is covered by Premier Pro/After Effects… really try and use the full suite if the project allows it.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

I generally don’t follow specific blogs but rely on Twitter for most of my information and news. Too many people to mention, but you can have a look at who I follow and interact with for a good idea! As a general rule, if you are an AEL, ACP, or Adobian who follows me… I will follow you back! Also – if you are doing other interesting non-Adobe-specific stuff (Unity, experimental HTML/CSS/JS, other crazy stuff), that is cool and will probably peak my interest!

I just beg everyone on Twitter to please make it apparent who you are and where your interests lie – makes it much easier to follow back that way. I try my best not to be a Twitter-snob so the best way to get my attention is to ENGAGE

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

Yes… *deep breath*.

A lot of conference activity this year… too much! I started off the year doing three different Adobe User Group presentations on BlackBerry PlayBook development (Columbus Digital, LA Flash, and KCDevCore).

In March I took a break from technical presentations and did a spark session for Ignite Denver 8 on personal branding. In case you are unfamiliar with Ignite – many cities around the world host these events. Speakers have 5 minutes and 20 slides to talk about any subject they choose… and the slides auto-advance on a timer It’s a really interesting way to present and Ignite Denver pulls around 400 people, so you get a pretty big crowd.

I attended 360|Flex in Denver this year and wasn’t going to do any presentations myself, but the local Adobe User Group, RMAUG, had a slot open and I threw together an hour long session on “Getting Down n’ Dirty with Mobile Flex 4.5 Projects” which went really well for being a last minute gig. Since Adobe released Flash Builder 4.5 that morning, the topic was timely and I’d been working on the prerelease versions of the tooling for months (not to mention materials for my book which was still in tech-review at this point). It was a good session. Jun Heider was moderating a panel in the evening one night called “Open Screen Project: Views from the Trenches” and I also contributed to that. They tried to record the panel but I’m not quite sure if the recording was ever released.

In June, I did another Ignite session for Ignite Denver 9 called “Zombies, Vampires, and Babies: What You NEED to Know!”. It basically revolved around comparisons of babies with the undead and was really well received. I enjoy doing the Ignite stuff but will probably have to skip out on Ignite Denver 10 in September because of other obligations. Next year!

In July, I was very fortunate to have been accepted to speak at Dee Sadler’s excellent D2W (Designer/Developer/Workflow) conference in Kansas City. My session “Adapting Expectations to Fit a Mobile Workflow” revolved around mobile once again but with an emphasis on workflow and the considerations that go along with that. The amount of killer speakers at this conference is astounding – all great sessions.

A few weeks later, I attended the Adobe Education Leader Institute at Adobe HQ in San Jose for the 3rd year. This is a week-long conference for AELs and is always a blast. We get to interface with product managers, engineers, and executives… all sorts of interesting people- including other AELs from around the world. During the event; I moderated a panel on Adobe Edge, did a 5-minute presentation on custom context menus in AS3, and presented a hands-on session which covered the basics of developing a mobile AIR application using Flash Builder and mobile Flex. One of the cool things this year is that Adobe opened up many of the sessions to the outside world over Connect – so we were able to have an expanded audience.

The last set of sessions for the Summer were done for the COLTT conference in Boulder, Colorado. I presented a full session called “Mobile computing in a ‘Post-PC’ era… right?” in which the current state of mobile computing in education was discussed, and that evening spoke at the Café Pédagogique event on the necessity (or not) of institutional mobile applications.

Upcoming speaking engagements will all be during the Adobe MAX event in Los Angeles. I’ll be presenting a scheduled MAX session called “From Desktop to Mobile: Application Functionality for Small Screens” on Tuesday at 4:00pm and will be doing a condensed, modified version of this same talk for the Adobe Education pre-conference day. I’m also scheduled to speak on mobile UX during the FITC unconference and have scheduled a session on BlazeDS, Flex, and Java/Spring for the 360|MAX unconference. A full schedule for sure!

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

Sure! I’ll be writing about this further down the question stack though.

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?

Not really. I do plan on open sourcing the codebase for my DropFolders application this Summer. This is an application that I built to both showcase the native process functionality in AIR 2.0, and as an application for use by less technically inclined members of the university community who wanted to encode video with no real fuss.
The app is basically a GUI for the HandBrake CLI and includes the ability to set up sets of monitored directories and outputs with custom encoding parameters. Almost no one at the university is using it, but it has gained a pretty large user base in the wider world. Unfortunately, my time is limited and as such cannot continue to support the application… hence my desire to open up the source code for others to build off of.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

It’s good to see HTML finally evolving to more closely match the needs of modern browser-based projects. JavaScript, unfortunately hasn’t really changed much apart for some new APIs that come along with the HTML5 spec and an increased number of frameworks (like jQuery) to make JS development a little less painful. I was really hoping that JavaScript would adopt the ECMAScript 4 proposal put forth about 5 years ago (the same spec that AS3 was originally based off of) but sadly it never did. So we are stuck with the same old JS that I used when I started doing web development over a decade ago! Unbelievable.

I have to say something about HTML/CSS/JS and Flash here. This is the same thing I’ve been saying for years but it is worth repeating. HTML and Flash have worked hand-in-hand for their entire history and there is no reason that this will change with an evolved HTML spec. No reason at all. The fact that some basic animation can now be done using HTML/CSS/JS in no way renders Flash obsolete as the platform has such reach now that simple animation on the web is not really a concern for really any of the Flash devs I talk to on a regular basis. If you need some simple animation on a website- by all means use HTML/CSS/JS to accomplish that if it is appropriate to do so.

Two things that have really irked me about this whole debate has been the public condemnation of Flash by Apple (this sort of corporate assault is unheard of) and the renewed antagonism toward Flash developers by people using other technologies (though mostly from the JS side of things). Apple has taken an anti-Flash stance and has made it official company policy. There is nothing we can do about that but hope they eventually reverse the policy. Individual developers, however, are a different story entirely. Isn’t the web about freedom? We have a variety of choices when deciding which technologies to employ atop the basic HTML/CSS/JS web stack. The HTML5 spec has the embed tag for a reason – to expand upon this basic set of technologies with other platforms. There is nothing wrong with that. Unity, Flash, Java, Silverlight, Shockwave… whatever is an appropriate use of technology should be accepted. Yes, if you choose to use something outside the “standard” set of browser-based tech, you may not be able to access that content on all devices in the world. This is nothing new. People need to realize this, gain some perspective, and get over their narrow-minded view of the web. It’s big enough for everyone to play

In short; be nice to one another and accepting of other technologies and platforms. And if you disagree with a particular technology… please refrain from being a total smarmy douche about it.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

Aside from legacy projects, I always target the latest version of Flex. We generally don’t have any restrictions at the university level when it comes to this so it is rarely a problem… though we do evaluate such things on a project-to-project basis.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

Flash/Flex/AS3 is my core but I have rarely met a Flash dev who only works within the confines of the platform. This is probably due to the history of Flash Player in the web browser- which necessitates that a developer knows at least some HTML, JavaScript, and ideally a few backend server technologies. As for myself, this includes ColdFusion, PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Zinc, JavaScript, FMS, a little JSP, a bit of ASP, BlazeDS, and a smattering of other languages as the need arises.

Flash is a gateway drug. Once you have a grasp on a few of these things and a willingness to read the docs, nothing is really all that hard to pick up. I really want to pick up C# but haven’t come across a project that necessitates it yet. I may have to just come up with a personal project sometime over the next year or so to experiment. Finding the time to do this while staying abreast of changes and additions to my core toolset is tough- but can be done.

With all of that said though… I absolutely prefer to work in Flash. It’s solid, proven technology that can do just about anything you need. It is an absolute joy to work with where other tech can be a painful experience!

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

I’ve been writing a lot of articles and books lately. My “Flash Development for Android Cookbook” has been out for around six weeks now and is beginning to get some really good reviews. I’m also in the middle of writing some short eBooks for O’Reilly which should be out in October and am in the planning stages of another print book with my primary publisher, Packt, for publication in 2012. There’s also a short, 48-page book that I wrote to accompany the set of mobile Flash development DVDs that I recorded with Peter Elst and video2brain a few months back for Adobe Press and Peachpit. This collection should be available something this month. A smaller workshop of new Flash Builder and Flex stuff with video2brain was actually just published and is available now.

I’m almost always involved in teaching a variety of courses for the University of Denver as adjunct faculty. These courses range from beginning Flash and AS3 to web graphic design with Fireworks and PHP development. A real variety in materials… I actually did a special topics workshop this Summer on mobile Flash and Flex which just concluded. That was interesting! The students built a lot of interesting apps and I received really good feedback about the course.

Apart from my work at the university, I also run a small technical consultancy and production company from my home called Fractured Vision Media, LLC. We do a variety of projects for clients both local to Denver and as far away as Seattle – mostly Flash and AIR work but it varies. With the amount of writing I’ve gotten myself into lately, I’ve been trying to cut down on the amount of active clients we take on. It’s a rough balance.

FVM is also a small record label which I leverage when publishing audio recordings as my experimental darkambient alter-ego – “An Early Morning Letter, Displaced”. I’ve been working in music production through this project for over a decade and have released five different albums of music (2 lp, 3 ep) during that time. FVM has also released a free collection of music collected from the developer community called “Emergent Collective One” which contains a stellar set of varied material. I keep meaning to organize a second volume but time has not been kind to me this year.

I have a wife and two small daughters as well… so always need to find time for them. It’s difficult with all of these other things going on and I may have to cut back on some of this work in 2012 in order to retain some level of sanity.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

I’ll list some resources and sites that I’ve mentioned above here, but want to note a few things first; primarily, thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this interview! I love this series of developer interviews- so informative to read others perspectives on these things. Second, I’m writing this on a long airplane session… stuck in a seat for hours… with no one to hear my screams… so to be able to just work through these questions has been quite welcome! This probably accounts for the length of my answers as well – if anyone is able to get through reading the entire interview- good on you!

Links:
- JosephLabrecque.com
http://josephlabrecque.com
- Twitter Profile
http://twitter.com/JosephLabrecque
- In Flagrante Delicto!
http://inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com
- Flash Development for Android Cookbook
https://www.packtpub.com/flash-development-for-android-cookbook/book
- Mobile Development with Flash Professional CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5: Learn by Video
http://www.adobepress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321788109
- Adobe Flash Builder and Flex 4.5: New Features Workshop
http://www.video2brain.com/en/products-161.htm
- Fractured Vision Media, LLC
http://fracturedvisionmedia.com/
- Emergent Collective One
http://fracturedvisionmedia.com/FVM005/

what’s your favorite animal?
Dragon. I am a dragon.

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

Whoooeee. I believe that was in 2005. I was working at a pretty boring, soul-sucking place in NYC and I could do my job well in a couple of hours, so what did I do with the other six hours of the day? I messed around with flash. I thought I was gonna be an animator, but had no patience for it whatsoever. I was hooked from the first myMC.onRelease.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

I am not at the moment. Really looking forward to trying it out on my next flash/flex project, as most of you know I’ve had my head stuck in the django/python clouds lately.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

PureMVC, Cairngorm, and lately I’ve been learning Robotlegs. A few months ago I made a small flex/air project using a mashup of PureMVC and SignalsCircuit, which is Omar Gonzalez’ revision of the PureMVC notification system. I enjoyed that immensely. To find out more about it, check out https://github.com/s9tpepper/SignalsCircuit-for-PureMVC.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

Ha! I was messing around with Flash Lite in 2006, trying to build a finance app on a fancy Nokia model to tell me how much I had left to spend for a particular budget. I believe that’s called Mint these days; sigh. Actually, my most recent dalliances with mobile dev took place before AIR 2 came out, when the general consensus was that it was too slow to be usable. It felt like moving heaven and earth (mostly because of Apple), but I finally was able to get haXe working on my iPhone, using Hugh Sanderson’s NME library. It ran amazingly well and to be honest I’m rather surprised I don’t hear more people talking about it, specifically for game development. Coding in haXe is almost as joyful as AS3.

I have an idea for an app that I’ll be working on soon, and it will be for tablets. While I may deign to try Objective-C (never say never) I am going to give this a shot first: http://www.blog.visup.it/2010/10/tech/haxe-titanium-targeting-iphoneipad-and-android

What I really want is to be able to code in a language that feels natural to me, and yet be able to use native iOS and Android UI. I think I’d rather sacrifice the native UI for my idea (it’s somewhere between a toy and a game) and use AIR mobile than cave to old man Jobs and use Obj-C, only to have to rewrite the whole thing in Java. I don’t think I’ll try to use Flex. Though I love it on the web, a little blue bird told me it’s not a good idea on devices.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

I use Flash Builder. Though it’s been breaking a lot lately. May have to switch it up.

Textmate for html/css/js/php dev. I’ve never been patient enough to get code completion working with Textmate, otherwise i’d look into hooking it up with Sprouts and using it for flash dev. If anyone wants to tutor me someday, let me know on Twitter.

Eclipse + pydev for django and python development. I’ve also been known to use vi, ‘cuz I’m hardcore like that.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

git rocks my world.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

Oh, I was going to save this for a blog post but you know what, I’m really too busy these days. People, if you don’t use Google Reader, sign up for an account. Make a bogus Twitter account. Then find a bookmarklet that will let you subscribe to blogs with one-click. Make a public folder on Reader, and get the RSS feed URL for it. Feed that to TwitterFeed, and point that feed to the bogus twitter account. Now follow that account.

All your fave blogs are belong to Twitter, yea!

Or since the above is a bit convoluted, you can just check out who I interact with on Twitter. Lots of awesome people.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

Yikes, I love conferences but the last one I went to was in 2008 (FITC Toronto). I know, for shame. I’m pretty cheap.

No, but seriously, I’m in startup mode at the moment and a conference doesn’t quite fit in my gruel-and-an-occasional-beer budget. Speaking would certainly offset the cost. I was thinking about proposing something one day called System Administration for Dummies. Holler if you feel that would be an interesting thing to hear about.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

Well since you ASKED, we are in the midst of launching our first startup. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks until a private beta, but sign up below if you’d like to do a little QA for me! I promise it will take the form of a short survey and you can write as much or as little as you want

http://ruedaminute.wufoo.com/forms/retrogiftsco-beta-signup/

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?

Nope. Wish I were but it’s hard to find the time these days.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

I’ve been working with jQuery a bit lately. I can’t say I’m enamored with it, but I’d like to try backbone.js on a new project. For me it’s pretty simple, I think Flash will become a tool for web game development and multi-platform mobile development. For traditional web apps, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a client who wants to create a new one in Flash– unless a requirement is that it be very graphics-rich. Flex devs will have plenty of maintenance work, though, for the forseeable future.

People have been making a lot of pretty things with Canvas lately, but honestly I don’t really get it. Flash is a much more mature tool in my opinion for beauty. Why make it so hard for yourself? Cuz of a frickin’ iPad? The only people using those things (other than us devs) are so old, they can’t even see what you just made, dude.

LOL. I’m kidding (kind of)

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

4.5. there has been a bit of hate on Twitter about skins lately but I couldn’t disagree more. I LOVE skinning in flex 4! it’s like, what I do to relax or something.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I think i’ve said them all already, but python, html/css/js, actionscript, haXe, php/mysql, and I do a lot of unix stuff when i’m messing around inside servers.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

I’ve been playing American-League only fantasy baseball. I’m second in my league. I love being in water. I love hiking and being outside, and I crave the sun. A few months ago we finished trekking from the southern tip of South America to Colombia, where my family is from. It was unreal. Ooh, that reminds me of another idea I have. Couchsurfing for developers. Think of it as international, intimate hackathon organizing. Let me know if you want to help build it, we could use django!

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

Just want to say thanks to my man Sean for asking me to do this, had a blast, didn’t know I had so much to say

Oh and I just moved to Texas! Anyone who wants to connect in Austin or the surrounds, get in touch!

http://twitter.com/ruedaminute
http://blog.ruedaminute.com

what’s your favorite animal?

Probably this guy:

He’s called the water bear, and he exists.

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

Funny… I used to be of the mindset that Flash was evil, and slowed everything down when browsing the web…

At the time, I was working for a large company and finished this huge project about 9 months early. Since I had a TON of free time, I decided that I was going to mess with Flash MX 2004 – y’know, the good ol’ AS2 days.

I started with an MP3 player for my blog that I never updated (hmmm… still seems to be the case!), but wanted to showcase some beats I had made. I set out writing all kinds of manual tweens (accellerators and decelerators, etc) and instantly fell in love. I wasn’t too happy with working in frames in a procedural sense, seemed to have quite the learning curve coming from an OOP background. But once I got it, I was hooked! I started writing galleries, forum front-ends, showcase sandboxes, and yes I even built an entire website in Flash. I was that guy. But, I proved to myself, and others around me that Flash wasn’t bad, the developers were. And it was clear why, the Flash IDE was not tailored for development, and its user base wasn’t exactly prone to development either.

But the problem is, I didn’t have any REAL work to do in Flash, I was playing around during my free time at work. I decided to leave the company after hearing I had a month until our entire department was going to be outsourced (which was my fault for finishing the project so damn quick :S, to which I still feel bad for all involved) and found a new gig. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Flash, it was my mainstay (at the time) which was PHP. I did a few jobs after that doing PHP/HTML for everything from eCommerce, to random agency clients, to large enterprises. At my last enterprise job, I met Jonathan Campos who I became friends with, and we talked shop quite often. It’s funny, on almost a daily basis he would tell me “Man, you really should check out Flex, I think you’d like it. It has a lot of OOP concepts you’d like, while giving you some cool power to do some flashy things.” I had jobs, job offers, etc in PHP so I didn’t jump immediately, but after he left the company he was hitting me up about job offers in the metroplex, and lit a fire under my ass.

That weekend I went home, and wrote tween and particle engines in AS3, and did the controller UI in Flex. The next Monday I was interviewing for a job, and found I was well enough qualified compared to the others they had been interviewing for the last 6 months. w00t! I got a job! But, honestly, I still knew virtually nothing about Flex.

Since then, it’s all I care about… Flash, Flex, AIR. It’s a disease… A drug… Everyone should be on it.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

No. I’ve practiced it quite often doing PHP in an enterprise environment, but as I’ve come to Flash/Flex it seems no one has time to do anything, let alone think about testing. I really wish we did TDD where I’m at now, but I consider it a utopian practice. Maybe one day I’ll get a gig that allows me to actually utilize the SDLC to it’s definition, and not have upper management spew bs about agile when we’re actually waterfall

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

I suppose we mean just Flash/Flex; in which case: cringed with Cairngorm, dabbled with Mate, heavily used PureMVC, and my mobile efforts have been RobotLegs.

I like PureMVC for enterprise development; it’s standard MVC structure is nice, and with everything being explicit it’s easy to pick up a project.

RobotLegs has been great for mobile; really lets you showcase stuff faster than any other MVC framework I’ve messed with. But for larger projects, I have had issues I won’t go into.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

Yep, when Flex 4.5 was first under way, I played a lot with it to make an AIR for Android app. I quit that project in place of trying to build a Playbook application for the well-known developer offer. In the end, I made an Auto Insurance application to store information about your insurance, as well as log information about an accident you might get into. I also made another app for fun which displays Fireworks on different backdrops. Both were fun to make, and helped me understand the mobile design mindset.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

Flash Builder 4.5, no plugins.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

Flash Pro for sure, and I heavily rely on ANT for production releases.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

I don’t do much for scanning blogs; I’ve given up on my Google Reader as well because it’s overwhelmingly full all the time.
At this point, I look to twitter for the good links. I’ll see them pop up, a few guys retweet, and I’m doing the same.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

Unfortunately not. I wasn’t given the approval to go on the company’s dime, and I ate up all my PTO visiting elderly family members.
My goal is to be a speaker at either 360 Flex, or maybe even MAX. We shall see!

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

Not at the moment. I’m trying to come up with a niche product that has a wide spread use… Wait… So is everyone else!

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?

Not any more. Having only been in Flash/Flex for 2.5 years, I’ve mostly been involved with understanding the internals of Flash, Flex compiler, and best practices. Eventually I’d like to contribute, as I know a lot of libs have helped me along the way.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

Meh. I was going to leave it at that, but I suppose that’s boring.

In all honesty, I’m not even the least bit interested. I have been doing HTML since ’96, when the best thing you had for layout was a spacer image tag and a table tag. I used to make “cheat code” pages for my favorite games (hey I was 13/14, gimme a break). It was easy back then… For a while now, all these browsers have made doing HTML unbearable for me. I’m not in the business of making up use cases depending on having moons align, or browsers rendering correctly. It’s just not fun, and I’m beyond happy to not have to worry about it much anymore.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

4.0 for my employer, 4.5 for personal projects.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

PHP, HTML/JS, C++, C#/VB, and when I was way younger I did perl. I’ve played with: java, python, ruby, and brainfuck

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

I try to stay off the computer if I can. After 15 years, it gets old sitting in front of a monitor day in and day out. As of late, it’s mostly projects around the house; but I’ve built a large shed in my yard, and have designed and modeled in Sketchup some custom desks I plan on making.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

He already knows, but I’d like to thank Jonathan for introducing me to Flex, and people involved in our community along the way. Big thanks!

In regular passing, I’d say 360 Flex has been the best conference I’ve been to; not for the material, but the intimacy of the setting. It’s not too big, not too small. You get some great social interaction with some of the top devs in the Flash/Flex world, and it’s amazing to see the different lives we all live.

any questions i should add to this interview?

Sorry, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

Shortly after I finished school at The Art Institute of Dallas (for 3D Animation) in 1998.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

No. I have no good reason. Maybe I should start… but not today… I’m doing other stuff today.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

None outside of the Flex framework. However, I’m interested in checking out Robotlegs… but not today… I’m doing other stuff today.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

Yes, but only as my own side projects. Memory4Kidz and GameHound on iOS, Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

I pretty much stick with Flash Builder, but fire up things like TextMate for small tasks from time to time.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

I use Flash Pro from time to time but not nearly as much as I used to.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

I don’t follow blogs nearly as much as I used to and the only times I find myself reading them lately is if someone sends me a link or if I come across a post from search results. As for twitter, I’d say most of the usual suspects like @jonbcampos, @terrypaton1, @AntonioHolguin, @jhooks, @seantheflexguy, etc, etc.. I could go on and on with this list.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

Unfortunately, no. There was a good chance I was going to be able to go to [my first] MAX, but some events at work turned that around pretty quick.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

GameHound – http://www.gamehoundapp.com
Memory4Kidz (in the process of a complete rebuild) – http://www.jasonfincanon.com/downloads/memory4kidz

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

Meh. Whatever.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

Version 3 at work and version 4.5.1 for personal and side projects.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

Some of the normal stuff that I think you have to know if you work on the int0rwebz like html and js. I’ve also dabbled in other things like PHP, Java, Obj-C, and a few others but I always find myself coming back to the Flash Platform.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

Spend as much time as possible with my wife and three kids (ages 1, 4 and 6), take classes in KFM (Keysi Fighting Method) and Combatives at http://www.combativewarriorarts.com (where I’ll also start instructing in Aug/Sept), mow my lawn, go to Lowe’s, watch tv, eat steak, stare at the wall, play angry birds, fix something that broke in the house, eat steak and eat steak.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

My own blog (which I really need to get back to) – http://www.jasonfincanon.com

what’s your favorite animal?

My chupacabra. I keep it in the shed in the backyard and feed it goats.

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

in 2004, i started learning flash through evening classes from RISD’s continuing education department, and was delighted to discover actionscript. i had just completed a software engineering certificate at the harvard extension school (using mostly java), and actionscript really clicked with my desire to work on the front end and make interesting visual things happen through code. when i exhausted the local knowledge (which was pretty fast – RISD didn’t have a lot of programming teachers), i turned to gotoAndLearn and then lynda. then in 2007 i had the great opportunity to work in joey lott’s group at schematic, and learned flex 2 on the job for my first client project. air (or apollo, at that point) was in alpha, and joey was approached about writing a book on it. he shared the opportunity with our team, and so between writing my chapters and reviewing those of my co-authors, i developed a pretty solid understanding of AIR during its pre-release.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

i’m embarrassed to admit that i’m not. it’s on my long, long list of things to learn.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

for architectural frameworks, back at schematic we mostly used cairngorm, and at litl we used robotlegs. robotlegs worked well for us, but i’m not really equipped to compare its strengths and weaknesses against other frameworks. without a doubt though, frameworks are worth the time it takes to learn them. no matter which one(s) you pick, it’s really helpful for a whole team to understand the code’s organization and wires, so that anyone can jump in on anyone else’s project and know that they’re doing.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

right now i’m learning flex iOS development, so just doing a lot of little hello world sort of experiments, kicking the tires and getting a feel for it. i have a specific app in mind to build, and need to figure out whether i can do what i want in flex, or whether it would be better to do it in objective C. it would be so convenient for me to build the app this way, because my flex is stronger than my objective c, but ultimately i’ll use whatever is the right tool for the job.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

i use flash builder 4.5. at litl, we used the flexformatter and any edit plugins to auto-format code on save. we just distributed a stylesheet to everyone on the team, and they configured their plugins properly, and it blissfully removed superficial code-formatting criticism from any of our discussions about blocks of code. it also allowed us to use tooling for code reviews, ensuring that the diffs showed only code changes and were not sullied up by any extraneous formatting changes.

i also have an intelliJ IDEA license, but learning how to make the most of it is another item on that long skill-building wishlist.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

git, git tower, github, and google code reviews.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

there’s so much news out there, i definitely battle information overload. there are so many different possible specializations within web and mobile. so my advice to anyone is just to seek out the people writing about the stuff that matters most to them, and ignore the rest. lately i’m really interested in the careers and experiences of women developers, so most of the blogs i’ve discovered in the past year are from that research.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

i’ve spoken at a few conferences in the last year or so, including flash and the city, the fits unconference at adobe max, and ria unleashed. this may i spoke about code review at multi-mania in belgium, and in september i’m doing an elevator pitch at flash on the beach in brighton. i’ll have only three minutes to hook the audience on code review! it’s a good challenge.

on the maybe list for this year are the decoded conference in munich in october, and flash unplugged in london in november. next spring, i definitely hope to attend beyond tellerand in cologne. of course there are a lot of great conferences in the US, but without having expenses paid through an employer, i’ll probably only be crossing the pond for conferences which pay speaker travel and lodging expenses.

applying to conferences makes me feel really vulnerable. you send your proposal out and then either get accepted or rejected, with no feedback. if i were ever to run a conference, i think i’d try to write at least one or two sentences along with each rejection, giving the developer some tips about how to improve their chances for the future.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

i’ve been working on a series of interviews of women developers for ria rockstars. this project grew out of my frustration at not having other women role models, which i didn’t think of as much of a problem when i started out, but became painfully obvious when i had a baby. i’ve never seen a male programmer take more than two weeks of parental leave – certainly never three months or more. and when they return to work, they are not navigating the same physical demands that women have on their bodies during the baby’s first year. around then i was speaking at a conference, and it just so happened that there was another speaker there who’d had a baby at about the same time i did. i asked her how she balanced career and motherhood, and she shared that she had switched to working part-time. this was a revelation for me – that maybe in order to stay sane i was going to need to forge a new path for my career, that didn’t look like the one most guys take. the idea, or permission, to reduce my hours felt like such a breath of fresh air… but i also began to worry about how to keep my career momentum and the respect of my colleagues. i’m still answering those questions for myself, and want to make sure the next generation has access to the answers that i and others find. so i interview other women developers. and every time one shares her story, i find myself voraciously re-reading it and finding so many parts of it that i can relate to. teasing out these stories, and sharing them back with the larger community feels like some of the most genuine work i’ve done in a long time, and i feel lucky to be in a position to do it.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

4.5. but i’m just me, playing around, not restricted by client needs.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

well, i trained in java, though that was ten years ago, and in order to do anything interesting with it i’d have to learn some new tricks. but who knows, maybe it will come in handy for android development. my schooling also involved C and unix shell scripting, and while i don’t use those at all, i’m really glad to understand pointers and memory management and to be comfortable at the command line.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

currently, this is most of the time. since moving to germany this spring for my husband’s job, i’m a stay-at-home mom to my toddler son. it’s a way more physically intensive, emotionally draining, and ultimately more rewarding job than software development. i’m also learning german, studying up for my driver’s license, finishing setting up our apartment. i have some weird german tenant responsibilities like sweeping the stairwell, and collecting apples that fall from the pair of trees in our yard. i regularly shop at the outdoor market and cook with a lot of fresh vegetables, which i feel is so important for my wellbeing. and in calm moments after my son goes to sleep, if i have any energy left, i play a few songs on my guitar.

i’m really thankful to have the chance to take a pause, and slow down from the startup/agency pace. but it won’t last forever, so i’ve also started trying to scope out the local tech scene and see if there are any companies doing interesting web/mobile work around here – or any cool american companies for which i should consider working remotely.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

my urls:
blog: http://flashonista.org
twitter: http://twitter.com/krotondo
google+: https://plus.google.com/105115259145511474643/

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
Dabbled a little in timeline animation with Flash from 2005, got into some timeline-based AS3 in 2008, then started Flex Development in 2009 with Flex 3.5

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

Unfortunately my previous employer was not interested in TDD so I haven’t had any practical exposure to it as yet. Seeing as I’m freelancing now, it’s fairly high up my ‘to learn’ list and I’m just waiting for a suitable project to get stuck in and give it a go.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

I’ve only used Cairngorm so far, once again due to the choices of my employer. Based on the examples I’ve seen, articles I’ve read and opinions of other Flex devs who I have a lot of respect for, RobotLegs looks like it will be my framework of choice for any future projects.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

No not yet, I think I’m a bit of a purist at heart and would rather develop any mobile projects natively if possible. That said, Flex/AIR for mobile has come a long way very quickly so I will be keeping my eye on its performance and capabilities. Never say never!

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

I use Flash Builder 4.5 with no plugins. Honestly, the lack of plugins and the choice of IDE is simply because I have been too slack to try out any others thus far. There may be better options but Flash Builder works for me!

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

None really, haven’t seen the need. Just Photoshop/Fireworks for graphics bits and pieces – exporting FXG from Fireworks has come in handy a few times for complex skinning.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

I’m really not much into reading blogs, I always wait for interesting articles to be tweeted before reading them. The only blog I intentionally visit is Stray’s (http://www.xxcoder.net) where she writes often about the psychology of programming and also some more advanced development techniques, always in a way which is easy to read and understand.
I won’t list all the incredible twitter people here as there are just too many, but Twitter is easily my number one source of support and inspiration.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

So far this year I’ve attended Webstock (http://www.webstock.org.nz), WebDU (http://www.webdu.com.au), WDCNZ (http://wdcnz.com) and Bar Camp Auckland (http://bca.geek.nz) which are all annual web/tech events and all absolutely worth attending. There’s also Flash Camp Auckland (http://flashcamp.co.nz) coming up next month which I am helping to organise, Creative Camp Wellington (http://creativecamp.co.nz) in October and cfObjective(ANZ) (http://www.cfobjective.com.au) in November, all three of which I am supposedly speaking at but have yet to come up with topics for…

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

Right now I’m working on two client projects. One is a website involving a YouTube video player, so have been ‘having fun’ with that API the last couple of weeks, and the other is a web-based admin for an iPad application, which has been great for experience with PHP, HTML/CSS and jQuery which I am really enjoying – quite a lot more fun than I had expected, in fact.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

That’s a tough question. I have been a web developer before, and it was a deliberate choice to move away from web and into Flex development. I think the capabilities of JavaScript in relation to Flash are immensely over-hyped at this point, but technology is advancing rapidly and this won’t be the case for long. As Flash Platform developers we have a great opportunity here – moving from AS3 to JavaScript is not a massive jump really, and we have the advantage of experience building apps which many web devs don’t have. I personally have quite a lot of interest in ExtJS and Sencha Touch as mature app development frameworks for JavaScript. The similarities to Flex make them very appealing.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

I always keep up with the latest release version of Flex for new projects, so everything is 4.5 or newer at this point.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I have a fair amount of experience in HTML and CSS dev, if you can call those programming languages. I’m currently studying so I’m learning Java through university, and have been learning PHP and JavaScript/jQuery through a side project. AS3 was my first ‘real’ programming language, so now I’ve got that one under my belt I’m really excited about learning new languages. The similarities and differences between them are quite fascinating, and if you’re not learning anything you’re probably not having fun!

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

Attend pretty much every community event, meetup or conference I can get to. Meeting people is great fun and it’s always good to get new perspective on the world and the tech industry. I’m also currently doing a lot of reading and attending class in between my coding. I love getting out and doing extreme-type activities like snowboarding, rock climbing and windsurfing which are a great contrast to sitting at a desk all day, but unfortunately my freelancing-student life means there hasn’t been a lot of that lately!

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?

Oh yes! I’m a real twitterbug so it’s the easiest place to find me (http://twitter.com/tanya) but I’m also on LinkedIn if that’s more your style (http://nz.linkedin.com/in/tanyagraynz) Please do say hello!

what’s your favorite animal?

Lizards! I even have a little lizard mascot who travels around with me  http://twitpic.com/5ormym

name:

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?

I first started working with Flash around 1999 using Flash 4, first adding “flashy pieces” to HTML sites and eventually starting to create small apps and video players. I didn’t start Flex until Flex 2 beta. I remember seeing MXML previews for Flex 1 beta and knew back then it was the future of enterprise Flash development, but the server requirements were not appealing at the time. I immediately jumped on the AIR wagon during AIR 1 beta and haven’t stopped since!

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

We recently started applying test driven development to our projects at almer/blank. It was a difficult transition at first, it would be dishonest to say doing TDD is easy, or that adopting is going to make you create better software overnight. But armed with great resources like Roy Osherove’s “The Art of Unit Testing” and his articles, Robert Martin’s “Clean Code”, and awesome libraries like FlexUnit and Mockolate the transition has been one I wish I would have done sooner. I’m still learning to write better tests and more testable code, but I like the benefits it has brought to my development process and the software that I make.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?

Up until around 2004-2005 I was still working with no application frameworks but was starting to try and use MVC architectures in my applications. Right around 2006 I started working with PureMVC and that has been my main framework since. I’ve recently been trying out Robotlegs with the help of a prerelease copy of Stray’s book “ActionScript Developer’s Guide to Robotlegs”. I’ve also worked with portions of spicelib, mainly the Task framework which is incredibly handy for managing tasks. As of right now, 7/29/2011, my favorite framework is still PureMVC, although I use it with a plugin for it I made called SignalsCircuit to use Robert Penner’s as3Signals to replace PureMVC’s notification system. I do have to say, though, that there are some things I am really liking about Robotlegs so far, but I’m not 100% converted… yet.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?

I’ve done mobile dev with Flex on Android and PlayBook. I’ve found mobile dev with Flex to be rather easy. The part that most complaints come from are dealing with poor deployment/debugging procedures like with the PlayBook and iOS, or with the lack of access to some of the APIs that developers want access to in order to create fully rich mobile applications.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?

I am still a Flash Builder user. I’ve tried IntelliJ, and I’ve tried FDT. I still use Flash Builder as my main workhorse, but I need to have SourceMate 3 installed with it. I also use FlexFormatter to keep code formatting consistent throughout our dev team, it really makes it nice when all code is formatted the same on a team. I dont use eGit, it wasn’t ready when I last tried it and I really like using Tower on my Mac or just CLI.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?

When I do AMF development I use a tool I made called PlugrMan, it helps me tests AMF methods as I write PHP. I use Charles for debugging web traffic, and Wireshark to debug port traffic if I’m working with sockets on something, Wireshark most likely has support for it. I don’t like using “trace” tools like SOS or MonsterDebugger, I just make a debug class that I call a trace(“”) method in so I can comment it out quickly and I monitor my traces with Terminal using the tail -f command on the Flash log. Don’t think I have any other tools I use besides that.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?

I used to read a lot of blogs, but I don’t read as many blogs as I used to. Most of my tech info comes from the Twitter-verse from people like you (@seantheflexguy), @stray_and_ruby, @royosherove, and many more of the awesome devs I follow on my Twitter list. I wouldn’t know 1/2 of what is going on in the Flash and tech world in general without Twitter.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?

No conferences this year, yet. I will be speaking at the FiTC Unconference at MAX this year on working with PlugrMan!

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?

Right now the two main projects I’m working on when I’m not working on client projects for work are PlugrMan and MongoAS3, one commercial and one open source. I am big on writing tools for development. I have several tools that will probably never see the light of day that I’ve used on and off throughout my development career. A lot of them are quickies that I make to accomplish repetitive tasks that don’t have very pretty interfaces but get the job required done. That’s really where PlugrMan came from… it started off as something I started to build to start testing AMFPHP services.

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?

I have lots of open source pieces of code on my GitHub account (http://github.com/s9tpepper). I think the most popular of projects I’ve been involved with on the open source side of things are the PureMVC PHP port I wrote along with Hasan Otuome (@heroizm) and recently the MongoDB AS3 driver MongoAS3 (http://github.com/s9tpepper/MongoAS3). I can’t wait to be able to contribute to the Flex SDK via the Spoon project (http://spoon.as).

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?

Honestly, I really don’t care much about what is going on in the JavaScript world. I’m more interested in building robust enterprise Flex applications, games, and any kind of interactive experience that is going to be on multiple screens. The browser’s cool, but there’s so much more in programming than the confines of a web browser.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?

I’m almost always working with the most recent version of Flex, so currently I’m writing for Flex 4.5. No old projects on my plate right now, so all latest and greatest!

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I use PHP/SQL quite often, but not as much as I used to. I did HTML/JS from 96-2000ish, since I started doing Flash I only use it when I absolutely have to (to embed my Flash SWFs mainly).

what do you do when you’re not writing code?

I like to play my bass guitar and mess around with GarageBand. I watch a lot of basketball, although right now the next season isn’t looking like its going to happen. If I’m not doing one of those two things I’m either trying to think up what I want to code next or hanging out with my girlfriend.

what’s your favorite animal?

Liger.