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.

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!!!