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 start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
I started working with Flash and ActionScript back in 1999 when I was still in college and when I started my first web job as a web designer at the University of Delaware. I had played around with a lot of the animation stuff for a while, but when I finally learned ActionScript (1.0 at the time) I became hooked. It was pretty easy to learn, and was totally fun as well.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
I am not—mostly because I am doing more prototype-type work or projects that are very small with a limited audience. TDD is something that I would love to teach novice developers to help teach them early in their careers, but it is not easy to teach and there isn’t much content out there for new programmers to work from.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?
Again, since most of my projects are prototype or smaller sized apps, I haven’t used many development frameworks. I have managed projects where we have used Caringorm, DevelopmentArc Core, and RobotLegs, but I personally haven’t worked with them myself. I tend not to get too religious about the frameworks that are used, since I want the team to choose what is best for the project and their personal preference since it will let them be more efficient to get the project finished.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?
I have! I haven’t released anything into the marketplace yet, but I have been building a ton of prototype applications to test performance and different combinations of tools, workflows, and technologies to do it. In addition, I have been doing a lot of mobile development with HTML frameworks too using jQuery Mobile, Sencha, PhoneGap and others to see what is different between it and the Flash workflow.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
I’m pretty vanilla. For my projects I generally use Flash Professional for asset management exporting as SWCs that I then use in Flash Builder without any plug-ins. For prototype projects I generally use the Flash Professional code editor since it is something that is just testing out a concept. For my HTML stuff, I use Dreamweaver for the jQuery hinting, and for anything that is heavy hitting use Notepad++. I have moved over to Windows 7 from Snow Leopard, so I have also been playing with Visual Studio, mostly to do some experimentation with Windows Phone 7 development.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?
I have been using Maque [http://www.maqueapp.com] from DevelopmentArc recently – It is a very cool app to help with prototype work as it creates a fake data service that you can customize with different schemas and different service types. I know James and Aaron (the developers of Maque) very well, and have been impressed by the project and look forward to see it evolve. Other than that, I don’t use any other developer or coding tools, but for my prototype and mobile app development I would be completely screwed without Fireworks. Say what you will about how amazing Photoshop is, but if you are doing app development there is no comparison to Fireworks: Pixel perfect, scriptable, and fast.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?
As a community manager at Adobe there are too many to list; however, I tend to follow all of the Adobe evangelists for the latest projects they are working on, and then general tech blogs like Engadget (which I read multiple times per day) and others. I also listen to Nerd Radio and other podcasts too. I do have to say though that reading blogs has become more difficult in the last couple of years—not because of lack of time or anything, but how commenters have become so bitter recently. I love the Flash/Web/Mobile communities—but there are some outliers that make it a really sad place to be sometimes. I wish people would just embrace that things can be “different” without being “crap”.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
I have attended a bunch this year starting off with FITC Amsterdam, followed by FITC Toronto (my first). I was a speaker at both talking about HTML5 and the new Adobe Edge project that I was the former product manager for. I was going to speak at D2W this year, but had to cancel due to my job shift at Adobe, but I will be a lab instructor at Adobe MAX this year covering two labs on Flash Professional and ActionScript 3.0 development for phones and tablets. I hope to go to others, mostly Flash on the Beach, but will be going to a bunch of user groups on the west coast, including SDFUG in September.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?
I recently finished a book that was recently released called “Fundamentals of ActionScript 3.0: Design and Develop” for PeachPit press. I have been a big advocate of trying to make it easier for people to learn ActionScript and become developers with the Flash Platform. First it started as an instructor at San Francisco State University (which I still do), and then my ActionScript 1:1 series on Adobe TV. Last year, I held a pre-conference lab at MAX that included a course guide. That guide evolved into the new book, and I added a new section specifically for AIR development for desktop and mobile, and some of the new features of Flash Professional CS5.5.

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?
Nope—just a consumer of them J

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
As the former product manager of Adobe Edge, I’m an interesting person to answer this question. Over the last year, I have really been moving my focus to tablet and mobile UX design and development. With Flash, you get Android, iOS and RIM—but for the others you have to go native or work with HTML-based frameworks like PhoneGap that support Symbian, WebOS and they just started to support Windows Phone 7 too. You will undoubtedly need to make more than one version of your app—but hopefully not 5 or even 6…With AIR you can get three out of the way, and then with PhoneGap you can get the others, plus you’ll have the HTML to make a sweet mobile browser version as well.

It is tough to match the creative power that you get with Flash, and while it is possible to get a lot with CSS3, it is awkward and not as straightforward as Flash. As a designer and developer, and taking my virtual “Adobe” hat off, I honestly think that mobile designers and developers will need to embrace both. The part that sucks is that the HTML5 tools, frameworks, and technology change so quickly that it is difficult to be on top of it and still get your work done. It is getting a lot better, but it is still tough to find stable footing.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
I always work with the latest version since I am trying to find workflow issues and provide training materials for the latest version that is in the market, so I have been working with 4.5.

what other programming languages do you know/use?
Other than my 1986-era BASIC skills? Not that much. I know a little (emphasis on little) C# and Objective-C, but that’s about it. I generally work in ActionScript, JavaScript, MXML, HTML and CSS.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
I play a lot of games, ranging from real-time strategy, turn-based strategy, puzzle, role-playing, MMORPGs, and also physical card and board games. I also have a huge collection of old games I have built up since the early 1980s, starting with old text adventures like Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy, Alone in the Dark, Starflight, Sentinel Worlds, Loom, and the complete Ultima and King’s Quest series that I get a ton of inspiration from in terms of how to build an immersive world within strict technical constraints. I haven’t been adding to the collection recently since I’m pretty happy with it, but every now and then I’ll pull one off the shelf and install it in DOXBox and play it for a bit. It is nostalgic fun, and reminds me that sometimes the best games are based on story and core design and not on the latest visual technology.

In addition, I have been transforming my interest in fitness and nutrition into a hobby as well. I have been trying to lose weight for several years, and have been having some success, but starting in 2011, I wanted to get much more dedicated to it so I started a fitness blog called BarbellGeek. [http://barbellgeek.wordpress.com] I have been working with a trainer to build an exercise program that I have been tracking in multiple forms in journals and Excel spreadsheets along with my nutrition program where I measure all of my food and calculate total caloric intake and my BMR (basal metabolic rate). As a result I have lost 20 pounds since the beginning of the year, and am continuing to make progress. Recently I have been learning more about supplements including amino acids, proteins, vitamins and minerals to help me along my goal. Along the way, I have learned a lot and have prototyped some mobile and tablet apps from my experience that I hope to release sometime soon.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
I recently changed my role at Adobe, and decided to leave product management and get more involved with the community as a community manager. To help, I started a new blog, SFDesigner:DW [http://sfdesignerdw.wordpress.com], where I’ll be writing about ActionScript, mobile and tablet app workflow, user experience design, Flex, Flash, and HTML5. I just started it recently, but am looking forward to using it as a way to share all of the stuff I learn through my prototypes and app creation experiences.

any questions i should add to this interview?
It would be cool to see what everyone’s first experience with a computer was. For me it was with a TRS-80 that my step-dad brought home from work. He was the head of the computer department (then it was called the “data processing” department) at a local community college in New Jersey. A little later, we had an IBM clone from Sperry, an old PC company which is where I learned how to program. My step-dad bought be a book on BASIC programming for the IBM-PC using the built in BASIC compiler that came with DOS. I created TONS of little games with it. I even created a complete Star Trek bridge simulator application that had sound effects, graphics and a randomly generated star map. Very nerdy, but it was tons of fun, and allowed my creative and fantasy life to enter into the real world through the computer. I even created a box and manual for the game—I should have known then that I was born to make games and software.

what’s your favorite animal?
Hands down, the squirrel. My husband and I call them “bevos.” It was a name he called them years ago as a kid and it just stuck. We have peanut feeders at our vacation cabin in Sonoma and love watching them scurry around, eat nuts and just be cute. They are such neat animals.

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?

I have been a developer since 2001 and started working in the Flash Player since 2004

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

I stated using more TDD this year. It is proven to be a great way to prove functionality and help better seperate logic from views in Flash.

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

I started with Cairngorm back in the day, switched to PureMVC for a while but started using Parsley on every project this year. I found it’s better at separation on concerns and that also helps with TDD.

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

A little but looks like I will be doing more. Clients ask about it all the time and app development on platforms such as phones and tablets seems to be the way things are going for us guys that build RIA’s and such.

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

I use FDT the most. I find that it has the most features that allow me to customize my workflow and speed up development.

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

Flash IDE, Photoshop for asset creation, De MonsterDebugger, also been playing around with sprouts (ruby gem for working on flash development)

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

http://www.theflashblog.com

http://twitter.com/matthewswallace/companies

http://twitter.com/matthewswallace/flash-peeps

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

There is a lot of really awesome stuff out there and I am sure we will see even more awesomeness. As flash developers we are in a great position to learn and push HTML and JavaScript to new and exciting levels.

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

I have developed in Flex since version 3 and do my best to work in the latest version. The last few projects and current work are all in Flex 4 and above.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

Java, Ruby, Javascript are others that I use on a regular bases. I find that I can develop in just any language. A developer is a developer right?!

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

Solve the problem in the most reusable way possible.

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

Places you can find me.

http://mattwallace.me

http://twitter.com/matthewswallace

http://gplus.to/mattwallace

I’d like to send a huge thanks to Doug Reynolds for inviting me to present at the user group. I’d also like to send a huge thanks to everyone that attended the presentation both at the user group and remotely via Connect. A big shout out to Stray for the help reviewing the presentation content and also providing a quote for the slideshow!!

Lastly, a HUGE thanks to Roy Osherove for the inspiration and fantastic content both in his book The Art of Unit Testing and his videos.

I hope my presentation helps people get started with TDD and TDD Kata. If you have any questions about TDD please don’t hesitate to post a comment or hit me up on twitter.

Here’s some more info about the book pulled from Amazon.

After returning from 360 one of my next tasks was actually to implement localization into the new architecture I’m putting together. BabelFX is great because is uses an IoC approach to inject your view layer with localized textual values, pulled from resource bundles. It’s nice because you aren’t required to have a bunch of ResourceManager calls in your codebase. You simply add IDs to your view layer controls and components and BabelFX will then inject the various properties on them with the localized strings.

I’m still getting everything set up and have yet to explore the more sophisticated features available through BabelFx but so far it’s working great! Everything boils down to a Map that you create that basically maps properties from your resource bundles to controls in your view layer. It’s basically a Context and somewhat like a Front Controller. For large, complex applications you can use multiple Contexts to keep things organized and clean.

I’d recommend that you take a minute and check out BabelFX if you are localizing any Flex apps. It can be added to existing applications or used from the start of the development cycle. You can grab the source here, get the SWC here and I’d recommend starting with this example to see the uber basics.

I’d like to thank Thomas Burleson, the author of BabelFx for his time and help this week. He was very generous and gave me a hand getting things up and running. Thanks again man!! Really appreciate the assistance!!!

Thomas should be posting a new tutorial and video for getting things up and running with BabelFx soon. I’ll also probably put together a MEGA simple example sometime in the near future.

That’s it. Just tie the startDrag and stopDrag to the mouseDown and mouseUp events. Mega-simple…