Personally most of my year was spent learning more about Custom Flex 4 Component dev, RobotLegs, TDD, Mocking, Architecture and Arduino. I’ve been doing a TON of research into the HTML5/JS space and also native Java development dev for Android specifically targeting the Kindle Fire and Nook. Expect to see some blog posts on that stuff in the near future.

In addition to my dev life I also create and produce music. I released three albums in 2011. You can check those out here:

Sean Moore – All I Wanted (EP)
http://soundcloud.com/seantheflexguy/sets/sean-moore-all-i-wanted-ep/

Sean Moore – Love Life
http://soundcloud.com/seantheflexguy/sets/sean-moore-love-life/

Sean Moore – Some Old Choonz I Made
http://soundcloud.com/seantheflexguy/sets/sean-moore-some-old-choonz-i/

I’d also like to thank Stray and Omar Gonzales for all of the guidance and help throughout the year. I’ve learned a TON from you guys. Thanks so much for your time and help. It’s dearly appreciated.

25+ Brand New HTML5 and JavaScript Books for Web, Mobile, iOS, Android and Game Development
http://bit.ly/qsmg6g

MVC, IoC and TDD for JavaScript Development
http://bit.ly/qL6M6P

seantheflexguy Interviews 25 Flash Platform Developers
http://bit.ly/qstMWU

Sean’s Arduino Experiments (Roundup)
http://bit.ly/n0tExX

My Getting Started with Arduino and Flex/AS3 Development Presentation at FlexMania Brazil 2011
http://bit.ly/pau02R

Airgile a lightweight, easy to use project/task/defect management and tracking tool
http://bit.ly/ogrVn7

mongoAS3 – An ActionScript 3.0 MongoDB Driver
http://bit.ly/ndBern

Android User Interface Development: Beginner’s Guide
http://bit.ly/siRS8O

New Android Development Books for Flex 4.5, AIR, AS3 and Flash!!!
http://bit.ly/uc3JrQ

Intro to TDD and TDD Kata Presentation – Recording and Slides
http://bit.ly/lMd7Zm

BabelFX for localization of Flex applications
http://bit.ly/tyMG5B

Using Brainwave Data to Control an LED using AS3, AIR, Mindset BCI and Arduino
http://bit.ly/t8oEKO

SourceMate plug-in for Flash Builder
http://bit.ly/snXJzV

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?
When I was a kid (9? 10?) my dad brought home a Commodore 64, and I started messing around with simple BASIC programs — just simple scripts and things copied out of books (that usually didn’t work). I took a couple of years of computer science classes in high school, one year of BASIC on Apple IIs (including an animated scene of santa’s sleigh landing on a roof — my first real graphics programming) and one year of Pascal.

In college I needed to work to pay for school. I applied for a job at the campus bookstore, and the computer sales positions paid a little better than the others so I went for that. After six months or so there was an opening for a clerical assistant in the “inside sales” office at the bookstore. Technically the job was supposed to be data entry in FileMaker Pro database forms, but with my natural inclination to try to make things easier, I learned scripting in FileMaker Pro so I could automate as much of my work as possible. I guess that was my return to programming.

Ironically I have two college degrees but neither one is in computer science. I worked as a programmer through all those years to pay for my school…then I ended up working as a developer after I graduated.

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
After the college bookstore I started working at the university’s “international center” doing general tech support, data entry, and eventually HTML and data-driven web pages. One day (in 1998) my coworker said “you’ve got to see this” and showed me a flash animation. I was blown away. I downloaded the Flash 3 trial and started learning Flash animation. Near the end of my one month free trial I put together an animated tutorial that sold my boss on buying me a license, so that’s how I got started with Flash.

I took a university course on Flash the next year. I was pretty far ahead of the others in the class so I would just adapt the project requirements to push myself to do more. I started using a lot of scripting (using the fill-in-the-blanks Flash 4 “actions”). I built some of the typical things, e.g. animated drop-down menus and navigation controls. Back then it was a breakthrough in code re-use to put actions on an empty frame and use tellTarget. How things have changed!

I remember one crazy project I did at work using Flash to print mailing labels. They had just come out with a dot release of Flash 4 that gave improved printing control, allowing you to print content that wasn’t actually visible on-screen. We wanted to be able to print mailing labels by pulling addresses from a database that was connected to our web site. I made a SWF whose visible content was nothing but a “print” button, but behind the scenes it loaded data (probably using FlashVars) then looped over the data (using an actual frame loop on the timeline) to generate and print pages of mailing labels. Wow, what a hack that was.

I found Fig Leaf’s Flashcoders mailing list during that time, and that was my eye-opening introduction to the amazing Flash developer community that eventually made me want to focus full time on Flash platform work.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
Sometimes. I use it almost universally on personal projects, especially libraries. At work I use it occasionally when I’m building something that functions like a library (e.g. the service layer of an app) but not as much as I would like to.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?
I’ve attempted to use Cairngorm, Mate, and PureMVC. I use (and *love*) Robotlegs.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?
Yes. My employer is a consulting company focused on touch-based application development. Much of our work targets large form factors (e.g. tables with touch screen surfaces) but not surprisingly our clients have asked us to do tablet (and a little phone) work as well. Often these are “companion” apps where the tablet communicates with the table.

Most of our work is pure ActionScript 3. I built a couple of tablet apps with Flex-like functionality but they were targeting iPad back when Flex didn’t target iPad (only a year ago, how long it seems) so we just used a mix of open source and in-house controls. However, now that Flex is catching up it’s more of an option. At MAX I taught a lab on developing iPad apps with Flex.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
I’m a code editor fanatic and I try just about every new editor I hear about — especially if they have a free trial/beta =)

For years I used FlashDevelop as my primary editor. I had come from Visual Studio and FlashDevelop was (and still is) the closest thing to Visual Studio in terms of code hinting and code completion. However, I switched to a Mac almost two years ago and FlashDevelop didn’t run well enough in a VM to use. At that point I switched to Flash Builder for daily work.

A year ago I tried IntelliJ during their free betas. I liked it but I also had a few concerns with their development process — how they choose what features to include and exclude — and it’s still missing a couple of features that are critical for me. So when it came time to actually pay, I couldn’t justify the cost to myself.

At the same time, Flash Builder 4.5 was in development and it has gone through huge improvements in terms of coding productivity (and they continue to make improvements). So I’m still using Flash Builder as my main editor — I’m just a lot happier about it now than I was 18 months ago. =)

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?
I use git at work and for personal projects, and I use a GUI called SmartGit to help with that. When I do SQLite work (which is fairly often) I use David Deraedt’s “Lita” for database creation/management and my own tool called “Run!” for authoring and testing SQL. When I am doing hairy RegEx work I use Grant Skinner’s RegExr. At my work we often use Flash Pro to create asset libraries. I regularly use Fireworks for creating graphics. I also spend a fair amount of time with pen, markers, and paper doing sketches and brainstorming.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?
Way too many to list. But I will anyway. This is my short list =)

For news I follow Flash Platform product managers and accounts like:
@thibault_imbert
@Flash_Platform
@air
@ashorten
@RobChristensen

A couple others who seem to always know about news first are:
@JosephLabrecque
@MatthewFabb

A few of my favorites for great tutorials are:
@cantrell
@devgirlFL
@jasonsj_adobe
@renaun

These are some of the people who I find most inspiring-yet-down-to-earth:
@jhooks
@JeffBNimble
@davidortinau
@stray_and_ruby
@destroytoday
@richard_lord
@joshtynjala
@kristopherjoseph
@robpenner

Finally, I try to follow people from web/UX/design industries, even people with “different” viewpoints (i.e. not Flash lovers) as long as they’re not obnoxious about it. Some of my favorite people from non-Adobe communities are:

@lukew
@mediumjon
@odannyboy
@cameronmoll
@boltron
@mixonline
@Coleran
@littlebigdetail
@thegodfounder
@theresaneil

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
I attended and spoke at 360|Flex in April — my fifth 360|Flex as a speaker. It’s a great conference and I look forward to it every year. I also got to speak at MAX this year, which was exciting and a great learning experience.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?
are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about?
I combined these questions since they’re really one and the same for me.

My favorite open-source project is Robotlegs. I’ve contributed a couple of small patches to the project. I’ve built a few examples, gave a couple of presentations on Robotlegs at 360|Flex, and I’ve been working on an extension. I also follow the discussion forum closely and try to answer questions regularly.

I also have a few open source libraries and projects of my own making. There’s a list here:
http://probertson.com/projects/

I worked for Adobe for four years, mostly with the AIR team, and I was heavily involved in the SQLite feature so a lot of my projects relate to that.

The one that’s gotten the most traction is my SQLRunner library that makes it easier to work with SQLite databases, especially in terms of not having to write so many events and optimizing performance.

As I mentioned above, I have written (and released) a tool called “Run!” that’s an authoring tool/editor/testing tool for SQL code for AIR/SQLite.

A few years ago I also contributed some bug fixes and a few minor features for David Deraedt’s “Lita” app. Now that he’s open-sourced it, I plan to someday implement some ideas I have for that app. Someday.

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
It’s kind of sad and disappointing, yet fairly typical, for a technology to succeed in becoming most popular even though it’s not the best tool. We who have been through ActionScript 1, and have moved on from there, know about the problems it faced. I’m sure many of them have been resolved in JavaScript, yet at the same time I don’t see the same great tools, frameworks, and patterns for JS as I do for AS3. It’s very possible that I’m simply not in that community…but I have a suspicion that it’s because, for as popular as JavaScript is, the tools and patterns *don’t exist yet*.

And yet, although there have been many times that I’ve felt like I ought to just chuck everything and re-learn JavaScript…somehow I never have time because I’m just too busy with this ActionScript stuff.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
For the few times I use Flex, I’m doing mobile work so I target the latest (4.5+).

what other programming languages do you know/use?
Currently use: SQL, minimal HTML/CSS.
Previously used: C#, ASP.NET, PHP, HTML, JavaScript

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
Mostly I spend time with my family — I am married and have three kids so that takes up plenty of time. When I can I like to watch movies (at home–I don’t really like theaters). I enjoy photography and rock climbing but rarely get to do either one.

I used to do a lot of performing (acting/singing/dancing) in musical plays. That mostly stopped when I got married and had kids, but I occasionally get the bug and wish I was back on stage. Maybe someday I’ll actually do it again.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?
I’ve pretty much always had development as part of my job, although I’ve enjoyed also doing other things along with it. In previous jobs I’ve done design work, taught training workshops, written documentation and tutorials, and been a general tech helper. In my current job my work is split between Interaction Design and coding.

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
I have a blog, http://probertson.com/
Since the advent of twitter I mostly use it for posting projects and presentation slides/notes. Back in May/June I wrote several articles about some of the cool new features in Flash Builder 4.5.

any questions i should add to this interview?
Maybe favorite vacation spots? Or where we’d like to live if we could live anywhere?

if you were trapped alone on an island forever and you could take one thing with… what would it be?
My family (yes I’m cheating and using a collective noun)

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?
I like to listen to dance or instrumental music while coding. I particularly like video game soundtracks.

My most recent “discovery” is Lennert Busch (@lennertbusch). He composed the score for “Split Screen: A Love Story” — a short film that was making the rounds on twitter a few months back because it was shot entirely on a phone camera. I liked the score so much that I asked him if I could get it, and he very kindly sent me the mp3. I wanted to help him make money for his work, so I suggested he put it up on bandcamp.com, and he did:
http://lennertbusch.bandcamp.com/

what is your favorite animal?
Human

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?
When I was in grade school I dabbled with drawing programs. Logo on the Apple 2E, and I forget the program I worked with on the TRS-80 Color, but I’ll never forget loading code from a tape recorder. After loading, I’d mess around without the source code to see how I could change it, break it, then fix it. This might have been the time I first got hooked on electronic sounds. Sometimes I’d unplug the cassette deck from the computer and listen to the screeches. Early modem punk I guess.

I ended up working with computers after running out of money in college. My bands weren’t making any money at the time so I rolled down to my local temp agency and went to work. Doing temp work was quite an experience. I worked in a toy factory, did grunt work in offices, and even helped finish opening a movie theater. While I was a temp I’d spend every lunch break at the office taking CBTs until I landed a job for UPS at their new data center.

I didn’t really take computers seriously until college. Both of my parents worked with computers so it felt natural that I also worked with them. It’s not something I wanted to do, but figured computers are everywhere so I couldn’t go wrong.

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
I learned the Flash timeline back in 1999, stop();. Back then I was just learning how to do screen animations so I wouldn’t have to use PowerPoint in meetings.

It wasn’t until 2002 that I really started to program Flash while working for an eCommerce firm. We had all the typical widgets you’d expect : shipping, coupon codes, banner ads, etc.

I got into Flex 2 professionally in 2007.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
I’ve done TDD in the past and liked it. It was always nice having unit tests to get an idea of what broke with that last update. However, TDD hasn’t really lent itself to the type of customers I’ve had over the last few years. I’ve done a lot of backend systems for creative agencies, webmaster type duties for local government, as well as general application maintenance and enhancement. Firms that have never heard of, or have any interest in using TDD because of their crazy timelines or limited budgets.

I’m planning on getting back into TDD for .NET at my new job. We’re in the process of moving to Team Foundation Server and I’m hoping our new workflow will include as much TDD as possible.

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

Fusebox ( coldfusion )

jQuery, scriptaculous ( javascript )

Microsoft .NET

Adobe Flex, Cairngorm

HYPE ( Flash )

My favorites are HYPE and Microsoft.NET.

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
For all Microsoft development I use Visual Studio Ultimate, Professional, or Team Foundation.
I’m not huge on plugins, but the few that I use with Visual Studio :
- JetBrains ReSharper
- Sonic File Finder

For Flex development I bounce between FlashBuilder and FDT. I’d use FDT full time if it had a design view ( yes I said design view ).

For Flash I use Flash Pro. In the past I used Sepiroth’s SEPY, and later FlashDevelop for windows.

For Coldfusion I bounce between Dreamweaver and CFBuilder.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?
I use TextPad along with all of the IDEs mentioned above. From RegEx searching, to macros, to snippets, to color coding, TextPad is the stuff. Network sniffers – Tamper data for FF, Charles, WireShark.

Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE9+ all have great Developer Tools ( Opera has ALWAYS had great tools ). These come in handy when troubleshooting backend communication issues.

Homegrown tools. This one depends on the project, but I always end up writing a utility or two if the project is of any size. Sometimes it’s an AIR app that does log parsing, or even reads the Flash Player log file. If I’m doing a lot of database development, I’ll always have a script or two that generate code classes from database tables, or html forms from tables, etc.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?
Joshua Davis – @JoshuaDavis
FLASH!, My computer hero, skateboard homie, and the reason I’m still a programmer

Grant Skinner – @gskinner
Big flash brain. Grant needs no introduction.

Branden Hall – @waxpraxis
Possibly the smartest person I know.

Erik Natzke – @Natzke
Crazy designer. His work blows my mind.

Paul Robertson – @probertson
I always get a schooling from Paul on AIR and Databases. Unsure if there is a nicer person in the Adobe community than Paul.

Adam Lehman – @adrocknaphobia
He’s into shoes, good woodwork for Adobe, and he can take a flogging better than any Adobe employee I’ve met. I’m just a grumpy server coder and Adam still listens.

Nick Kwiatkowski – @quetwo
Nick is just a smart mother hubbard. Good Coldfusion and Flash Platform resource.

Phillip Kerman – @phillip
Honestly don’t remember when and why I started following Phillip, but I’m assuming it’s because this dude is funny. Probably because of Flash, although this video about the Adobe Updater is enough reason for me to follow Phillip – http://www.youtube.com/phillipk#p/u/1/IBkKBeVX9js.

Scott Janousek – @scottjanousek
Scott is a creative, and I love following creatives because I wish I could design.

Jesse Freeman – @jessefreeman
If you only know the Twitter side of Jesse Freeman, do yourself a favor and meet him in person. Smart cookie, shit talker, and knows exactly where to take you for lunch in NYC. I first started following Jesse because he’d bitch about things I liked to bitch about. Plus he doesn’t keep himself in a single technology bucket, which I always admire.

Joel Hooks – @jhooks
Robot Legs, Coder man, Family man, Skateboard photographer, and recently caught the Colorado bug. Every time I hang out with Joel I learn something new.

Michelle Yaiser – @MichelleYaiser
Race car driver, works for Adobe With the exception of skateboarding, Michelle can do everything I can do, only better. The night I met Michelle I put my hand in a bowl of hummus. It was hella smooth.

Kevin Suttle – @kevinSuttle
Creative, developer, super nice guy. Another one of the few creatives I know in the Flex community. Besides having a mutual love for DJ.Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Kevin is a cool cat. Often times I’ve feel bad because the few times I find something creative to share on Twitter, Kevbo already tweeted about it that morning.

Bob Wohl – @bwohl
I’m still bummed that I didn’t skate the Venice Beach skatepark with Bob when we were at MAX in 2009. Luckily Bob and I are still connected and we will be skating in 2012 when my knee is working again. I don’t need any other reason besides skateboarding to like and follow Bob, but you should follow him even if you don’t skateboard. He runs his local Adobe community, as well as contributes to Twitter regularly.

Brandon Ellis – @brandon_ellis
Another skateboarder I’m happy to be connected to in the community. Besides our love for skateboarding, Brandon schools me on music pretty often. Brandon does Adobe, but I don’t recall exactly what.

Tom Ortega – @LordBron
Tom and I love bacon. Tom and I have worked together. I can’t say enough good things Tom Ortega, except he didn’t know that Jimmy Page was “the Led Zeppelin guitarist”.

Ben Stucki – @benstucki
Ben is a big brain, hat fan, musician, and all around funny guy if you get him to talk. Ben is always doing projects that I wish I was doing with sound and low level things like ByteArray.

Leif Wells – @leifwells
Leif “Hawk Attack” Wells. Former Atlanta homie, now resides in Boston. If you’re in the Adobe community you probably know Leif. If not, he’s the community guy everyone knows and loves. If you haven’t met him yet, just go shake his hand and tell him Fickes sent you.

Jesse Warden – @jesterxl
Atlanta homie. Jesse needs no introduction, but always deserves a high five for the work he puts into his blog, conference presentations, etc. If you’re new to Adobe, or thinking about going independent, Jesse is a great resource to follow.

Joseph Labrecque – @JosephLabrecque
Denver homie, talks about Adobe from the education space. Joseph “La BBQ” is a fellow musician and speaker at Ignite Denver.

John Wilker – @jwilker
Denver homie, 360 Conferences, Community master, and cool dude. When I first moved to Denver and started attending our local Adobe User Group ( www.rmaug.com ), I immediately loved John because he was the only one that caught my 80s TV references. Plus, he has a massive GI JOE sticker on his macbook. Knowing is half the battle.

Jun Heider – @coderjun
Denver homie, developer big brain ( not just Flex ), guitarist for The Compilers. Jun and I have a very similar past with music and computers. Jun works for local Flex gurus Real Eyes Media. You’ll hear him talking about heavy flex and video stuff, as well as good music. Jun rocks.

Scotty Sheridan – @realeyesScotty
Denver homie, drummer for The Compilers, developer and blogger for Real Eyes Media. You’ll hear Scotty talking about Flex video, and good music. Scotty and I were both born in Wisconsin, so we’re the cheese behind The Compilers.

John Crosby – @jccrosby
Denver homie, former chef, partner at Real Eyes Media. I like John because he’s got the Adobe chops, but he’s also interested in just about everything internet like myself.

David Hassoun – @hotkeys
Denver homie, partner at Real Eyes Media, video master. David is my go to guy when I’ve hit a wall in Flex, especially if it’s around video.

Tony Hillerson – @thillerson
Denver homie, musician, owns a 12 string bass guitar ( or something ridiculous like that ). I’ve had the honor of being mistaken for Tony Hillerson ( and RJ Owens ) at more than one conference.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
I just got back from the NiUG Annual Discovery Conference 2011 as an attendee. I’m new to the iMIS community and hope to do some sort of technical presenting next year, but I have nothing planned yet.

In 2012 I hope to attend Geeky By Nature, and 360 Flex.

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?
I just wrapped up a project with Automata Studios that I’m pretty proud of. It was the “JOIN THE CONVERSATION” section of www.glassislife.com. I handled the flash data services, and the social network engine behind the scenes. None of the pretty shiny bits, just the data behind the scenes.

As for personal non paying work, I have two projects worth sharing : AirCloud and The Compilers.

AirCloud is an Adobe AIR powered web browser and track downloader for Soundcloud.com. Besides being a convenience tool, I wanted to see how easily I could parse JSON using only RegExp to extract my data. While it works great, I’m looking forward to writing the next version of AirCloud using native JSON support, as well as tapping into more of soundcloud’s api.

The Compilers is a musical project I started with Jun Heider ( @coderjun ) and Scott Sheridan ( @realeyesScotty ) back in 2009. Starting out as a cover band in a back room, we jokingly suggested we should be the house band for our local Adobe User Group ( www.rmaug.com ). Two weeks later we landed a gig opening up for Kevin Hoyt on his Adobe Next Generation tour which was promoting Flex 4 and Coldfusion 9.

At first we were a bit hesitant since we weren’t officially a band at the moment. However, it was this tech show that sparked our initial concept for the band. Being our first band in the internet era, we wanted to use technology to add crowd interactivity to our show, as well as make a fatter sound than just three dudes.

The first year doing the tech fusion thing was a lot of fun. Some of the fun applications :
- Sound visualizers
- Live tweeting via twitter and text to speech.
- Crowd interaction with mobile phone gateways
- Rovio robots on stage

All three of us still like the idea, but ultimately the software side of things burned us out. That’s when we decided to go on hiatus. As a musical unit we had the chemistry, but it really felt like the tank was just empty so we took a break. It’s very exciting to be practicing again, and we hope to start gigging in 2012.

Here are a few blog posts I did during our tech fusion period in case anybody is interested.

- http://ericfickes.com/2009/10/from-joke-to-adobemax-in-6-months/

- http://ericfickes.com/2010/06/its-official-the-flash-platform-rocks/

- Photo set from our concert / presentation at RMAUG
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.453094845897.237612.110943240897&l=b5860e1188

- Follow The Compilers on Twitter
http://twitter.com/thecompilers

Definitely check out Jun’s blog as well. He did a handful of kickass blog posts showing the work he did with Flex, Merapi, midi, and connecting to his guitar.

http://www.iheartair.com/?s=the+compilers

what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
I’ve done my time in the DHTML trenches and it wasn’t fun. The possibility of having HTML as a viable platform is pretty exciting, but I just see that happening anytime soon. I’m happy HTML is being worked on again, but I’m more interested in being a backend developer right now. For the most part I could care less what client I’m speaking to, the server just has to send data.

We’re in an interesting time for sure. Development on the web used to be totally centered around the browser, but these days it’s becoming more and more about the rendering engine.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
My last big Flex project was 3.5 and being ported to 4.

The last job I was at we were on 4, but I was the Coldfusion guy there so I didn’t get my Flex on.

Right now I’m not doing any Flex work.

what other programming languages do you know/use?
C#, SQL, Coldfusion, Javascript

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
Skateboard – Colorado has over 100 public skateparks. Play bass guitar in The Compilers. Hang with my wife and kids.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?
Temp Worker
Help Desk
Remedy Consultant

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
I really appreciate all the love you’ve shown to me and the community through your blog, conferences, and social networking. You’ve got passion and fire that every community needs.
There aren’t many people in the Adobe the community that I’ve talked nerd with, skateboarded with, and played a concert with.

I’m stoked to have the ‘I know Sean’ badge.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?
Favorite bands at the moment : Evol Intent, Bro Safari, Flash Bang Grenada, Pretty Lights, Mastodon, Skindred

Right now I’m listening to Spotify when I code. If I’m not in the mood for anything specific I’ll play my starred tracks, and eventually I’ll land on something specific.

what is your favorite animal?
Animal, the drummer for Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?
My earliest memories all have computers in them – my dad and my uncle were both early adopters and into technology from way back. I remember being very young and using a mouse for the first time on a Macintosh computer that my uncle brought over, and I distinctly remember feeling (in my 3? 4? year old head) that it was too hard to use and would never catch on and that keyboards just made more sense.

Programming just kind of came naturally the way it will to a kid who has computers around his whole life – one day you realize that someone must have made that game you’re playing, and you want to know how that happened. So I remember going to the local library and getting this big hard-cover introduction to BASIC when I was maybe 7 or 8 and learning about how basic computer logic worked, and I thought it was really neat – and then I kind of stopped pursuing it after that, for years. I’m not sure why.

But in my early teens I got the bug again with the advent of the web, and I was viewing sources on all my favorite sites and figuring out how to assemble these things. I took the single programming class (C++!) my high school had to offer and I remember that my teacher didn’t really understand what “classes” were, and told us so, and explained that we weren’t going to be learning them. So it was a semester of basic logic and problem solving, then nothing.

when did you start flash/flex/AIR/AS dev?
One day there I was in my mid-twenties having just completed my undergraduate education in English and Japanese. I was working a job at the university (it was my student job, just formalized into a salaried position) when I decided I wanted to try something new. At first I started to get back into HTML/CSS front end development that I remembered from my teenage years (and from an internship I had in Japan in college, where I worked on the company’s website), but I started messing around with Flash for work because they needed a video player. I realized that it just ran the same in every browser and knew right then I was never going to sign up to write CSS again.

I played with it more and more in the spare time I had until I felt comfortable, then I went out and found some work contracting for a local agency. It paid way, way more money than I was making at the university, and I realized that I was pretty good at it and liked it. So suddenly I was a professional flash developer.

I worked as a salaried developer at two local shops before realizing that it made more sense economically to go independent, and I’ve never had trouble finding work since.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?
I had one false start with TDD – I started doing it and found that the estimate I had given was simply never going to work with the added time of learning TDD, so I had to stop in order to meet deadlines. My next project will be TDD with time built in to accomodate it.

what application development frameworks have you used? what’s your favorite?
Most of my early work was in advertising, lots of simple projects with quick turnarounds – and so for the longest time I didn’t use any frameworks. I got good at creating micro-micro-frameworks for each project individually, and to this day will do that for anything small.

I realized at some point, though, that I’d have to learn at least a few major frameworks to be able to build large projects and expand my client base, so I learned how Cairngorm and PureMVC worked before finally discovering RobotLegs.

RL is hands down my favorite, it manages to strike the right balance of opinionated framework / non-constrictive environment. It cuts down on a lot of boilerplate but still provides you with structure.

have you done any mobile dev using flash/flex/AIR?
Nope. But I have a few project ideas backlogged…

what code editor/IDE do you use? any plugins?
My go-to editor when I need to get something done is Flash Builder, but for the past few months I’ve been working for a client who uses IntelliJ IDEA and provided me with a license for internal team consistency. I have to say I really like some elements of IntelliJ IDEA, though I’m not sure if I’d kick Flash Builder out for it. It’s so quick and so clean – but lack of baked-in proprietary functionality leaves a bit to be desired.

what other tools do you use for flash/flex/AIR dev?
Project I’m on right now is using Bugzilla + Maven + Pivotal Tracker. I’m not sold on Maven – I get what it brings to the table, but I’m not convinced that it does more good than harm at the end of the day. It takes so long to get it working correctly, and then if you need to upgrade or something you have to essentially crawl through lots of ambiguous documentation – much easier just to drop the damn .swc in the libs folder and be done, in my opinion.

I got into the habit of building little tools in AIR for any tedious action. Drag and drop data parsing, etc. Incredibly useful.

I use Fireworks to view creative assets and bring them in, of the various graphics programs it makes the most sense to me because the whole thing feels like it was built for developers, which is great.

what blogs or people on twitter do you follow for flash platform info/news/etc.?
Oh, the usual. Various Adobe team members, community “thought leaders”, etc. I also make it a point to follow HTML/JS community people as well, just so I can keep up with what’s going on in that world.

have you attended or are you attending any conferences this year? as a speaker or attendee only?
Not this year. I’d like to speak at some conferences next year, maybe on some AIR/Arduino workflow stuff?

do you have any personal projects that you’d like to share?
I build arduino stuff as a hobby, it’s cool to be able to make things in the real world and wire them up to the internet. Something about that just feels like magic to me. I’m still sort of an advanced beginner, but I’m learning!

are you involved with any open source projects you’d like to talk about? what are your thoughts on the rebirth of JavaScript (and the HTML spec/family)?
Well, right tool for right job, right? HTML isn’t going anywhere, and JavaScript just won’t die, so we might as well get used to them. I don’t lose too much sleep over the whole “debate” because I feel like it’s not really a debate.

I will say that I do not like JavaScript – lack of type safety, little nested anonymous closures everywhere, the tutorials all look like what I would normally think of as “bad code”. But the people writing them are apparently really smart, and they’re building awesome stuff, and so who am I to say their code is bad? It doesn’t really jive with my sense of how programming should look, but I’m incredibly biased from working exclusively on the Flash Platform.

Plus, more and more languages “compile” down into JS these days – so saying that you don’t like JS is sort of like saying you don’t like .swf byte code. The easy answer is, then don’t work with it directly. And I think we’re going to see more and more options open up that enable that sort of approach.

What I’d really like to see is a server-side Flash runtime that streams the display list to the browser via highly optimized javascript. We’re already seeing tools like Wallaby coming out that can render timeline animation to JS – seems like if you abstract out just the display list then you could eventually do that for any flash application, right? Someone go make that happen and we can stop arguing about HTML/JS/Flash entirely.

what version of flex are your working with/targeting? 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5?
4.5. I’m relatively new to Flex, I hated it for a long time and then finally forced myself to use it. Now I kind of dig it.

what other programming languages do you know/use?
I’m primarily a Flash dude, but I have been known to sling some PHP or MySQL as needed. I’ve also been messing around with Python lately, primarily to help me with Arduino projects but also because once you look at Django you’ll never want to write PHP again.

Also, for all my bluster above about hating JS I have to say node.js is the fastest way I’ve seen to tie an Arduino to a custom codebase.

Also, I guess I do some C since that’s what the Arduino uses. And I’ve poked around in Java and ObjC.

what do you do when you’re not writing code?
I read, play video games, watch TV with my fiance (we still love you, Netflix, no matter what anyone says!), play with my cats. I recently got involved with a pretty cool space in the Columbus area called the “Columbus Idea Foundry” (http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/). It’s an art space / business incubator type place – lots of craftsmen and artists who work with advanced tools (there’s a blacksmith, they have a rocket scientist who hangs out there, they’ve got 3D printers, someone is building an electric car, etc) just hang out there making cool stuff all day. I’m a total noob there but I’m so impressed with the people and projects they have and I’m hoping to get more involved in the coming months.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?
I was a media producer – I used to record events taking place at the university and put them online. The place I worked used RealMedia for everything for the longest time, and I first got into Flash when I pushed them to adopt it so that users could simply view videos in their browser (like that cool new YOUTUBE site!).

anything else you’d like to mention? blogs, sites, people, tools?
I just want to say that I feel like I’m living the dream, learning cool stuff every day and doing what I love, and that wouldn’t be possible without the community floating around out there. All you fine folks on Twitter, G+ etc – you’re great, and I think it’s so cool that we live in a world where interesting people doing interesting things can easily talk about their passions in a single eternally digressing conversation. The Flash Community has been the most important tool I’ve had to get where I am, and I’m so thankful it’s out there!

if you were trapped alone on an island forever and you could take one thing with… what would it be?
How can anyone plan for “forever”? I mean, it would have to be a self-charging laptop with a satellite internet connection, right? Let’s at least be civilized.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?
My favorite artist is probably Nick Cave. His bands (both The Bad Seeds and Grinderman) put out stuff that manages to be rewarding on every listen. Lately I’ve also been enjoying the Fleet Foxes, and I’ve been getting into the Beatles a bit. I know that sounds weird, but I never really listened to much music growing up and so they’re kind of alien to me. I dig the hell out of the Flaming Lips record “Soft Bulletin”, but have a hard time with much of their more recent stuff.

what is your favorite animal?
The platypus, because it defies simple categorization.

name:

age: 1965

employer: self

location: Portland, Oregon

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

When I attended Rochester Institute of Technology I took several courses outside the Photography school. The College of Applied Sciences and Technologies had a small “multi-slide” production department which occupied “energy house” (which was some kind of showcase home). Anyway, this department was run by some passionate folks who exposed us students to such engineering marvels as manual cut/splice reel-to-reel audio and special-effect slides (doing things like glows using layers of acetate). The mid-80s seems so long ago now. Anyway, at the time AVL was a company that produced the state-of-the-art computer controls for slide projectors. Basically, they controlled when to advance the slide and how fast to fade in or fade out the lamp. I produced one show (using two projectors—though it was common to set up banks of many more projectors pointing to the same, nearly seamless, screen)… but you recorded the slide-change points onto a track of the audio that would keep synched. I guess that wasn’t 100% computer programming—but we had slightly behind state-of-the-art tools. I did do an internship in the summer of 1987 for a slide show production company in Portland “Creative Media Development”. They had an MS-DOS-based AVL computer set up so I got to (really) “program” that. At the time I was more interested in being a camera operator (mechanical and computer controlled cameras for advanced special-effect slides). At the time, generating slides 100% on computer was beginning to compete with mechanical means. You’d do your Photoshop effects like glow or blur by moving a precision camera, doing multiple exposures, etc. The computer generate slides were almost always mail ordered because writing the slide required super expensive equipment. You could use software to create slides, but it was a better value to have a service produce the actual slides. Wait a second, maybe I misunderstood the question. Did you want to know how old I was?

The first “real” programming I did was when I hooked up with a company called “The Human Element” in Cincinnati. They were into a software called Authorware (later acquired by Macromedia) which used a flow-chart metaphor to let you build your application. The Human Element produced very high quality computer based training with rich graphics and video/animation. They also sold the idea that our clients could be taught to maintain the programs we built. So, we taught them Authorware. It’s worth noting that a lot of tools have the promise to make non-programmers into programmers ‘without any code’ but I can personally attest to the fact Authorware could be taught to a certain kind of learner… and if they could map out their ideas they could “program” using visual icons. I’m talking about sophisticated stuff. Anyway, I became an expert in Authorware (version 1.7) and returned to Oregon to work on my own—at first doing ONLY Authorware and then expanding into Director (at version 4) and finally into Flash. Now I guess I get to do JavaScript though, really, there are tons of emerging opportunities.

Finally, it might be interesting to note that in college I had one programming course in Pascal. My main accomplishment in that course was that I got one program to compile! It didn’t work, mind you—but it compiled!

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

I watched Flash 2 and 3 grow up via my strong involvement with Macromedia. But it wasn’t until version 3 that I started to really use it because I had a course teaching it! (Note: a great way to learn something is to try to teach it.) When Flash 4 came along I helped an agency “Paris France” by programming the 1999 M3 snowboard site. That site got a lot of (good) mileage and exhibited what looked like video inside Flash. Anyway, it wasn’t until Flash 5 that it really gave me more work than Director. I wrote a book about Flash 5 (another good way to learn) and then when Flash 6 added video you could see that the Director ship had set sail. Not terribly different than how Flash is changing today.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

Not as much as I should I suppose. I sort of do it without knowing—like writing scripts to proof my code and such. But, I also don’t do too many huge projects. I suspect once I really get into it it’ll change the way I work but, no, I’ve only done it on two projects—both of which were pretty big (like a year on the calendar) and both involved more than one programmer.

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

I’ve played with a few, but in Flash I’ve used none of them. I suppose there are some custom foundation frameworks I’ve had to use when a client needed—like when developing games for MSN Messenger, you live inside their framework.

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

Yes. First, “mobile web” is simple: fallback to Flash. If you’re a super human or want to require modern browsers, then I guess doing ANY Flash is questionable. But, my recent experiences have been that you just do it in Flash… and then you re-do it in JS/CSS for Mobile Safari. Flex—never used it. AIR for mobile: yeah, I did some performance testing and exploration making a few little apps for Android. Obviously mobile is the future but I’m beginning to wonder if all this mobile work is sort of like sex in high school (that is, many people talk about doing it but few are). I just do what my clients ask for so maybe I just don’t hang with the right folks.

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

I use FDT.

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

I’ve only had to figure out GIT recently—but I still like SVN… I’ve touched ANT and figure for multi-platform builds I’d have to get that working better. I also write my own tools quite often to automate part of a project (sometimes in Director just because of my familiarity). Other than that, I use a paper and pencil and comfortable chair away from the computer to map out my programming. It’s a good approach for me.

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

You can easily join my online community via twitter or google+ and you’ll see the usual suspects. I do have a lot of admiration for the work of Brandon Hall, Grant Skinner, Joshua Davis, and Keith Peters—MANY OTHERS of course too. What’s really interesting is that I’m constantly made aware of folks who do crazy-good work but never really get out in the community. The point being that if you’re hanging out at a conference thinking “now THESE folks know their shit” it’s not like they don’t—but there are likely many others who are just as knowledgeable but just don’t get out much… or hang in the same circles.

I do think the Flash community is great and I get a lot of value out of it—but there are worlds of other folks out there too.

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

AdobeMAX. It’s a great conference. It’s amusing how many people discount the conference—often those who didn’t attend. Anyway, I spoke at the FITC unconference—but that’s it for MAX. That’s probably the last conference this year. Earlier I spoke at FITC Toronto and Flash and the City. There’s a great Portland conference which is expanding next year called WebVisions (webvisionsevent.com).

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

Not really—I have some old stuff but it’s too embarrassing. This is also part of the reason I don’t usually release code. I mean, I’ll give you pretty much any code you want—but I’m too lazy to clean it up etc. Oh, well, I do have something. A few years back I started making these anti-technology satire videos (youtube.com/phillipk). It was a great creative outlet. Then, I got into this street performance and prop-making thing: Handbills Delivered. Just the suitcase and props I made for that act took a TON of attention, time, and money. But it was basically an exercise in sculpture. There’s also the public performance side of it—something that I’m much less bad at now. Anyway, I just retired the act (as far as doing it unsolicited) the day before AdobeMAX and you can see the highlight video at tinyurl.com/handbill-tour. Anyway, my new creative exploration will be illustration. It’s sort of vague but only because I don’t have much of anything to show yet. Now that I have my third extra-curricular activity in mind I figured out a pattern—namely: every year I plan to have a 1-year long project that serves as a distraction from all the other stuff that’s going on. Sort of a 1-year residency as some artist… but I just do it at home any time I want to unplug.

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

Nothing against them, but not involved in any.

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

I gave up trying to fight JavaScript (as a language) and realize it’s pretty cool. I could care less what clients want/need—if it was clear that punch cards were necessary, I’d be okay with that. JavaScript is a good story the way the browsers make it sing now. I LOVE it when I hear people say HTML5 when they really just mean “not Flash” or they mean JS/CSS. You wouldn’t believe how many people introduce themselves as JQuery programmers (or are JQuery programmers and call themselves HTML5 programmers). I think the dude who made JQuery is brilliant (and since he graduated from my alma mater it makes him cool). But what’s doubly impressive is that he has basically created jobs.

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

That question just makes me laugh. Having just returned from AdobeMax I have to say I’m impressed with some examples I saw of Flex running in AIR/mobile. I’m still not interested in having the overhead of a billion extra bits of code—but, wow, it might not be as bloated as I’ve always thought.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I’m no expert in Java but know I could get a project working right given the appropriate time resources—after all, before there were ActionScript 3 books there were Java books (which is how I learned AS3).

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

I’m into crafts of all kinds. Plus, see the note above about my creative outlets. I have a small family and pets and I walk a lot. I like cooking and have recently gotten more into raw, vegan, and vegetarian food.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?

Out of school I hooked up with Sinar Bron. They imported super premiere photography equipment. I was a technical representative (demonstrating the cameras around the country) then the Manhattan sales territory landed in my lap. I sold this equipment (Sinar cameras and Broncolor lights) to dealers and photographers in New York. It was pretty fun visiting famous photographers… but I can say my commissions had no correlation to the success or fame of the photographer. After the company realized I wasn’t the best sales person of all time (I was okay—but they could make more money in NYC than I was doing) I got sent out to a territory consisting of Ohio, Kentucky, Pittsburgh and just to say I had it West Virginia. That was a lot more driving but I began to hate it and just researched the whole “multimedia/CDROM” thing that was emerging in the early 90s. I just contacted people mentioned in magazines such as “New Media” and “Morph’s Outpost on the Digital Frontier”. It’s so much easier now connecting with people. Anyway, that’s how I hooked up with “The Human Element” (mentioned above).

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

Water bottle

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

I like GirlTalk and tUnE-yArDs When coding I generally just want something that’s familiar to me. I don’t want to be REALLY listening (like if it’s new) because it can be distracting.

what is your favorite animal?

I guess a dog.

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

When I was 13, our school bought a Commodore Pet that sat in a fume cupboard in one of the chemistry labs. Pupils were allowed supervised access to it at lunchtimes. A year later Sinclair released the ZX81 and I saved up the £70 to buy one and started learning BASIC. I became hooked, gave up my aspirations to become a zoologist (my love throughout school was biology) and never looked back.

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

Around four years ago. Initially it was in order to create an AS2-based front end for existing industrial monitoring and control equipment. Then I changed jobs and started using AS3.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

That’s not an easy question to answer. I write unit tests and I use those tests to validate code as I write it. I do not follow strict TDD principles though. Having said that, I’ve recently come across the “TDD like you mean it” approach of writing the production code inside the test class then refactoring it out into proper classes when done. I find this enables my to produce tests as almost a by-product of writing the code and it’s a technique I really like.

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

Well I’m stuck using PureMVC a lot of the time, which I dislike intensely. I favour lightweight frameworks that have focused purposes and shy away from big frameworks that try to cover everything.

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

I’ve experimented with it, but not released anything to any app stores. Adobe Native Extensions have piqued my interest though, so I might do some more.

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

I use Eclipse with the FlashBuilder 4.5 and SourceMate plugins when doing AS3 or Java work. The IDE I love is Microsoft’s VisualStudio and I flee back to that whenever I get a chance to write C++ or C# code. I’ve often considered trying out Amethyst (which is an AS3 development extension for Visual Studio) but it doesn’t fit with what I’m employed to do and I can’t justify the cost for personal use.

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

Ant and Bamboo for continuous integration. CVS (yes really! and Git for source control. Twitter for asking questions of people who know more than me. Balsamiq mockups for (the name gives it way) mockups. VMWare for testing on different environments. Charles for delving into HTPP/AMF data flow between server and client. And Spotify for listening to music to keep me (semi) sane.

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

I don’t tend to follow blogs. I rely on folk tweeting about blog posts. On twitter I steer clear of most of the Flash “big names” as many have run off to JavaScript these days anyway. If you say interesting stuff (especially if you challenge convention), engage with your “followers” rather than just preaching at them and attract my attention, I’ll likely get around to following you.

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

Just the one: Stray’s try { harder } conference. There were just 16 of us, all had to do a presentation and it was seriously good.

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

I have a whole bunch of (semi inter-related) projects that are all low-level geeky stuff that stem from the incredible AS3Commons bytecode library that Roland Zwaga has written. They centre around command line tools (probably using Red Tamarin) for testing, processing and validating SWFs. The area I’ve made most progress with is with AS3Introspection, which is a replacement for describeType that can reveal all the gory details of the innards of classes, not just the small subset that the latter exposes. It’s biggest problem at the moment is speed (or lack of it) and finding ways to pre-process a SWF and add pre-cached reflection data to it is what I’m working on at the moment.

Much of this work came about through a desire to create a mocking framework – called WiseMocks – that can mock final classes, static methods, built-in classes and the like. I have got completely sidetracked away from that though and so it only exists as a concept at the moment.

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

There might be plans for me to get involved with Robotlegs 2 to create a validation tool. Can’t really say more than that at the moment as I really don’t know much more

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

HTML was conceived as a simply a way of delivering hyperlinked text. It’s then been hacked and bodged to try and turn it into an application and multimedia delivery solution. Add to the mix the fact that every browser half-heartedly implements various bits of a non-ratified standard. To then top it all off and kick you in the bollocks whilst you are down, we are then asked to take a hideously “designed” toy scripting language seriously and use that to code the web. The result is about as appealing as being served a dog turd with raspberry jus in rundown dirt café with pretensions of being a fine-dining restaurant. Apart from that, I’ve no problems with it.

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

A mixture of 3.5 (when Flash Player 9 must be supported) and 4.5 (when not.)

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I’ve used (and in many cased forgotten how to use) many languages in the past: BASIC, FORTRAN, RTL-2, Forth, Ada, Prolog, Perl, VBScript, JavaScript and a couple of assemblers and probably others. I also written a couple of compilers using lex and yacc that handled custom languages. Most of my working life I’ve used C and C++. These days, it’s mainly AS3, with some Java, C# and C++.

I’m trying to find the time to learn Scala and Ruby, but never seem to find the time.

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

Reading about or writing about code! More seriously, I have a wife and two young children, so I try to spend time with them as much as possible. Also I enjoy photography and watching rugby (I gave up playing after breaking my arm tackling someone many years ago.) I’m partial to the occasional game of poker too.

Oh and I belong to one of Lewes’ bonfire societies. Every 5th November, I dress up in costume with my eldest daughter along with thousands of others. We march through the streets of Lewes carrying flaming torches, before moving on to the bonfire where effigies of unpopular politicians and famous people are burned and fireworks are set off. The evening used to be rounded off by a bonfire being built outside the police station, but the police station has moved. As far as I know, this behaviour makes no sense whatsoever to those that don’t live in Lewes. But I love it.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?

None. I left college and went straight into development (or “software engineering” as it was called then)

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

I have a blog at davidarno.org. I post various opinionated rants (and sometimes useful stuff) there when I can. I’m on twitter as @davidarno.

any questions i should add to this interview?

Don’t think so.

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

A fully charged satellite phone with built-in GPS. I wouldn’t plan on staying long.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

Depends on my mood. Nirvana, Ministry, Senser, Pixies, Bauhaus and Green Day are my loud favourites. Tricky, Damien Rice, Bjork, Moby and Massive Attack for when I want more chilled stuff.

what is your favorite animal?

Can I have more than one? I think flat worms have the coolest group name: Platyhelminthes. Tardigrades (also known as water bears or moss piglets) have awesome super-power abilities. And if I had to choose a pet it would be jellyfish or reptiles.

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

My mom’s employer gave her an Apple 2e (it may have been the plus – we had both the plus and the E but I don’t remember which came first). She was supposed to learn computers on it, but I took it over pretty quickly. After playing all the games I could (Ultima 3 is one of the ones I remember the most), I began to look into programming. I mainly did it to cheat at games. (I used a hex editor to edit my Bard’s Tale characters.) Apple’s BASIC was real friendly and fun to write in.

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

I’ve been tangentially involved with Flex since it was still in testing. I’ve never done it full time, but I’ve done projects from time to time and have remained interested in it over the years. I thought it was cool because I was a true believer in the RIA concept and the Flash IDE just didn’t make sense to me. Flex was the perfect mix of code and UX.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

Nope. I have not yet adopted testing 100%. Mainly because I tend to do many ad-hoc small projects for blog posts. I believe testing is critical to a project’s success, but I don’t necessarily feel that you have to build the tests first.

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

Only Swiz, and I loved it Because I used Flex off and on, my skills never really took off. When I first worked on a large scale project, Swiz helped me wrap my head around how to build a larger Flex application. I was able to focus on building stuff and not so much on organizing.

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

Heck yes.

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

Flash Builder. The only plugin’s I’ve added are a SVN and Git plugin.

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

Nothing.

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

I rarely visit individual blogs on a regular basis. (The exception is Kotaku and io9.) Instead I use flexbloggers.org. It’s an aggregator of over 500 feeds. (And written in ColdFusion using an open source project for blog aggregation.)

I mainly hit video game and Sci Fi sites when I’m doing anything non-technical.

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

cfObjective, NCDevCon, MAX, RIA Unleased. Speaking/spoke at all of em. Oh, and I did my first jQuery conference early this year and spoke on jQuery Mobile.

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

See RIAForge (and my answer below).

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

Quite a few. I’ve released a lot of ColdFusion open source and manage RIAForge.org. An OS hosting site for projects making use of Adobe technologies.

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

I think it’s interesting. I have much more confidence in JavaScript than _some_ HTML5 features. I don’t buy into the whole HTML vs Flash argument. To me, it’s a great thing that we’ve got multiple ways to create content.

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

4.5.1.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

ColdFusion and jQuery (along with jQuery UI and Mobile).

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

Video games, books, and hanging with my family.

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?

This is it. My degree is in English with a minor in Comp Sci. At one time I thought I might be a technical writer, but once I got into web development that was pretty much it.

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

My blog is coldfusionjedi.com.

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

Not a damn thing. I’d take it as an opportunity to start fresh and empty handed.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

Mainly anything indie, but I’ll listen to trance too while I code. It depends on how stressed I am at the current time. If I really need to think I’ll switch to classical. Over all my favorite bands are The Cure and Depeche Mode – although I’ve not been terribly happy with them recently. The artist I’m probably most excited about over the past few years is MIA.

what is your favorite animal?

Bacon.

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

I think I started using computer when I was in third grade.My uncle usually had (still has) loads of cool gadgets which I had access to . My cousin and me used to play games in it all the time. I spent most of my time playing prince of Persia , space invader and a whole lotta stuff. My first programming language was GWBASIC. I think my passion to everything computer began then and it still is strong.

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

I started with flash mx mostly doing timeline animations, making animated slideshow using very little of AS. I think I used only gotoAndPlay() and stop() . ha ha .

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

No I am not practicing TDD , though I am learning about it and hope to use it soon.

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

I have used SWIZ. Now I am learning robotlegs and I kinda like it and see a lot of potential in it.

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

Yes I have done few but nothing which paid . I like the idea of mobile social gaming. I always wanted to develop games mostly because I was so into gaming myself . After seeing @terrypaton1 works I have a very strong urge to get into mobile game development now.. Someday soon I will make my own game. For this I see a long learning curve and I am up for the challenge.

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

At work I use Flex 3 , mainly because it’s a huge ERP to port to the latest versions. I had tried to convince my boss but guess I could convince him . Otherwise I use flex 4.5.1(expires in two weeks *sniff sniff*) to do my mobile projects

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

Other than Flex , I am big time into PHP .I use notepad++ or Aptana studio for PHP/HTML development

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

If I am not asleep I am online on twitter. I read before I go to sleep . I subscribe to load of stuff and try to keep up with the world , that basically quenches my daily tech thirst.

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

I attended @adobe_summit this year as an attendee . I would love to attend adobe max but that takes place on the other side of the globe. AND I don’t think I can walk to that place either .

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

I have a bunch of projects but mostly all half cooked and nothing worth mentioning . There is this project which I did a long time back which a few of the carnatic singers use. Its available at http:/bit.ly/shruthibox . This is pretty much one project a few found very useful. I am working on an android / i-phone version soon . This requires some research and I am working on that.

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

Its definitely not a flash killer. Most of the ppl who say it’s a flash killer have little or no idea of AS and the framework. Its like the village head said “No flash!!!! only html/JS” then the entire tribe danced in unison “aaahhhh hooo”. Its really nice that html5 web standards have finally come and I see it staying. When it come to web I guess all these are keys of a piano. Each one has a purpose and using them correctly brings out the best.

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

I use Flex 3 at work .

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I use PHP for backend . I know a little of other web technologies which helps me in deploying stuff and getting the work done.

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

When not writing code I’m learning how to write better code :p . I play PC games ,music and yeah at times I get a book to read.

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

WOW .. forever is a long time. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be stuck in an island . But if that island has free 100mbps wifi , KFC , a nice lawn chair , then I’ll take my laptop he he ….

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

I don follow any band in particular. The song and the volume at which I play it depends on my mood but when I am coding I am always listening to something.

what is your favorite animal?

Chicken ? wait !! yeah that doesn’t sound wrong . he he ..

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

My dad was into computers well before I was born. He saw them as video game systems, and always had the latest one. My first computer was a Colecovision Adam Family PC, which had SmartBASIC loaded on it. I think when I was around 6 or so, he bought me a programming book at a used book sale, and I haven’t looked back since. I quickly grew from BASIC to Assembler on our Apple IIGS, and a ton of more programming languages since.

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

My first dive into Flash programming(I did some light animation before then, but nothing serious) was when Macromedia introduced Flash Professional. It tried to break away from the timeline based programming and tried to introduce “Screens” that allowed a developer to work mostly in code. It was bad — real bad, but it allowed me to jump from Lingo to ActionScript.

Shortly after, I was working for a large telecommunications vendor who had me on a project where I was connecting a backend into what became Macromedia’s Flex. I read the only book on the subject (Webster’s ‘Devloping Rich Clients with Flex’) all the way through, and loved the concept. I think we were targeting Flex 1.0 or 1.5 at the time, and the IDE was based on Dreamweaver, with the compiler on the server. I’ve been using Flex ever since.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

I know TDD is the new hotness, I don’t usually practice it. I believe in testable code, but I don’t subscribe to the theory of programming to tests (I think the tests should be driven by contracts, and the cost should be driven by contracts — the end result is the same, but the implementation is different). I use iterative development and the QC development model, which works much better for my team and development model.

what application development frameworks have you used?

what’s your favorite? I’ve tried most of them, but like Mate the best. I don’t use one of the popular frameworks for most of my development — we have our own internal one that we use on my team.

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

We have done quite a bit of mobile development with AIR. For the types of apps that I deal with, AIR is a no-brainer… Our customers expect us to deploy on multiple devices with no budget and a short timeline.

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

Right now I’m using Flash Builder 4.5. I load it up with tons of plugins such as ColdFusion Builder, Mylyn, Subclypse, Android development tools, etc.

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

Not really… I do use some tools to help with diagnosing issues with data communications like WireShark, and ServiceCapture.

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

I’m always watching Polygeek (he’s pretty much my hero), Matt LeGrand, and Jeffery Houser. Otherwise I watch the news on Fullasagoog and Flashbookmarks to see what the latest happenings are.

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

I’ve attended 360|Flex this year as an attendee (one of my favorite conferences), and I will be attending Adobe MAX as a speaker. I attend quite a few other conferences for my job, but the others are more related to telecom and video stuff.

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

I’m going to be open-sourcing some projects after my talk at MAX this year. Mostly projects dealing with the Microsoft Kinect and Flex and of course Arduinos and Flex. Matt LeGrand and I are working on a few other projects that I’m sure you will be reading about soon

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

I know the direction things are going, but I have a feeling that people will wake up to find out that HTML5 is not all it’s cracked up to be. Will that lead to a resurgence of plugin-based solutions like Flash/Flex? I don’t know. JavaScript is pretty unpredictable and not at this point, being used in ways that it wasn’t really designed for. Let’s put it this way — it’s not my cup of tea right now

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

I support Flex based apps written in 1.5 all the way through 4.5. Obviously I’m targeting 4.5 at the moment.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

All my back-end stuff is either in Java or ColdFusion. I’ve been doing more Java work lately than CF, but it all depends on the app I’m working on. I also do some embedded development in C/C++ and dip into Delphi/Pascal every so often as well.

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

I support my usergroup, do mountain biking, support various Entrepreneurship efforts in the Lansing area and help with our Ignite, DemoCamp and TEDx events.
[ED NOTE: and help Sean w/ about 10 million Arduino questions. THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH NICK!!! ]

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?

I worked in computer sales, marketing, IT infrastructure management, telecom management and teaching. Technically right now my job is in telecom management, but I still do quite a bit of development.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

Favorite at the moment? I guess Against Me, Flobots, Gorillaz, and Linkin Park. I usually have one of the Ska or Punk stations on Shoutcast (RantRadio mostly).

name:

when did you first get started with computers/programming? how? why?

My first for cycle was written in 2004 after 8 months I was Macromedia Certified on Flash MX 2004 developer.

I love code after the first day that I started to use Actionscript 2 for create dynamic content

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

AS and Flash in 2004

AIR in 2007 when it was called Apollo

Flex with the second edition, I think the first release client side

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

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

I used Mate, Swiz, PureMVC but for now I’m working with a custom framework based on

Presentation Models for a multiple screen project with 3 differents GUIs but the same base-code

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

Yes of course, it’s my favourite kind of development!!!

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

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

First of all Adobe Evangelists like Mihai Corlan, Michael Chaize, Duane Nickull and so on, then Peter Elst, Biskero, Lord Alex, Stephan Beladaci, RIACowboy and of course… YOU!

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

I attended FATC in NY and next week Adobe MAX in L.A.

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

Yes I’ve one, mPresenter is an advanced remote control for presentation. It helps you when you are on the stage and allow you to change, draw or point on slides; you can also receive comments during your presentation for each slide. I made it for Android and iPhone too. It’s composed by a mobile app and a desktop app, this one allow you to create your preso and add comments in the slides.

More information on mpresenter.mart3.org

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

it’s the same soup with a new name…nothing new, with the same limits and problems…

HTML 5 is interesting but Flash Platform is definitely better, It seems to come back 5/6 years ago with AS2

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

Mainly from 4 to 4.6 obviously always with AIR 2.7, I really love this combination

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

I usually go to the stadium for a soccer match or I go out with Paco, my young jack russell terrier he is the best!

what career/jobs did you have before getting into dev?

I was a warehouseman for 4,5 years

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

Yes, I suggest to take a look at CrocusModeller ( http://crocusmodeller.com) I think is an interesting tool, we started to use in my company and it’s so useful to speed up a Flash Platform project.

what are a few of your favorite bands at the moment? what do you listen to while coding?

Mainly Oasis but also a lot of italian singers

what is your favorite animal?

Jack Russell Terrier