name: John Gorena
age: 27
employer: N/A
location: Dallas, TX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flash Builder 4.5, no plugins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4.0 for my employer, 4.5 for personal projects.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

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

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

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

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

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

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

any questions i should add to this interview?

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

name: Terry Paton
age: 37
employer: me!
location: Sydney, Australia

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

I started playing with Flash around 2000, but didn’t seriously get coding till around 2003/04. I started coding because I wanted to make games.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

I don’t even know what that really means. My coding style and methods have grown out of endless experimenting and testing, and speed of development is paramount – TDD sounds like something I’d prefer someone else to do.

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

I’ve developed my own game framework that has evolved over time through trial and error, recently I’ve started using Flare3D as a core part of my rendering process and that’s caused me to restructure things quite a bit. It would probably be good for me to learn more about what makes a good framework, but to be honest I haven’t really needed to – my games seem to work fine.

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

Yups, I have 10 games published to the Android Market, 3 to iOS (with 2 more under review), and 6 for the BlackBerry Playbook. Adobe setting up Flash to be published as AIR apps I can sell has been huge for me – although it’s not without its limitations or problems. I’ve rapidly become a multi platform developer with minimal effort

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

I currently use Flash Builder 4.5.1 – and the only plugin I use is ‘Flex Formatter’ – I am a very messy coder and I use this plugin constantly to clean up my work. http://sourceforge.net/projects/flexformatter/

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

I use the Flash IDE to create assets .swc’s and as games need visuals and sound (and I make most of the assets myself), I also use quite a few programs – Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Media Encoder, Sound Booth and a bunch of smaller software packages for a range of other things.

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

That’s a little difficult to answer, twitter and google plus are my sources of info and links. And the sources come from just about everyone I follow. I no longer regularly visit sites or even use rss feeds … social media ftw!

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

I’ve only attended one conference this year, WebDu (http://www.webdu.com.au/) and I was a speaker during the keynote, showing of some of the cool work people are doing with Stage3D. I’m not planning on going to any other conferences this year, prefering to focus on creating work at the moment. I may attend some local stuff, but time is always tight and money too. Generally the only time I’ll attend a conference is as a speaker as I can’t afford the ticket prices. If there was more gaming related stuff in my area I might go to more.

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

Yeah I’m working on a new game at the moment, a sequel to one of my fairly popular games. I may change the name but at the moment it’s called ‘Meteor Storm 2’. It’s my first game to be made with 3D assets and is heavily using Stage3D (using the Flare3D engine). Here’s a recent post I made about it – http://pixelpaton.com/?p=4234

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

I think it’s great that tools are evolving and taking over tedious parts that Flash has been used for. Other languages don’t interest me personally, but I think competition and choice are an important part of technology. Everything changes, or it gets stagnant.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I keep a very narrow focus, as I decide what I work on and the tools I use I find it much more efficient to specialise in one language and just focus on creating content.

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

I read, draw, sketch, paint, ride my motorbike, run/jog, play with my dog, do the housework (I work at home), drink too much booze, listen to thotskee’s tunes and try to grow personally. Motivation and focus are always a challenge so I work a lot on keeping the momentum up.

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

Yeah my blog: http://pixelpaton.com/ – I post a lot of my work here, as I work on it. I try to share what I do partly to feed my own motivation (feedback is awesome to do this) and to help inspire others. If I can make games – you can make games.
My google plus account is where I now ‘tweet’ (using a service to push out to twitter), there’s a bunch of links there that people may be interested in: http://plus.google.com/114101814013862230773/about

name: Jason Fincanon
age: 37
employer: Intuit
location: Dallas, TX

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

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

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meh. Whatever.

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

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

what other programming languages do you know/use?

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

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

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

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

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

what’s your favorite animal?

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

name: kathryn rotondo
employer: none
location: Tübingen, germany

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: Tanya Gray
age: 22
employer: Me!
location: Auckland, New Zealand

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

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what other programming languages do you know/use?

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

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

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

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

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

what’s your favorite animal?

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

name: Omar Gonzalez
age: 32
employer: http://almerblank.com
location: Venice Beach, California

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

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

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what other programming languages do you know/use?

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

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

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

what’s your favorite animal?

Liger.

name: Tony Lukasavage
age: 30
employer: Appcelerator (as of 8/22/2011)
location: Pittsburgh PA

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

Only about a year and a half ago, and I’m far from an expert. Most of my background before that was in back-end and middleware development in languages like C/C++, Perl, PHP, and shell scripting. One day I said to myself, “I need a challenge, what’s the opposite of your current programming skillset?” I came up with 3D graphics in Flash.

I started learning AS3 with Flex/Flash Builder by experimenting with Away3D. After a lot of demos and interesting blog posts, I shifted my gaze to what would ultimately hold the most appeal to me about Flex and AS3 dev: cross-platform development. I have since been spending most of my AS3 development time working on cross-platform mobile and desktop applications, leveraging Flex and Adobe Air.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

Not yet. Until recently I was employed by a large company without a single developer skilled in using test driven development. The structure of the team and the environment were just not well suited to introduce the methodology. I do plan to start incorporating it into personal projects as it appeals to my sometimes meticulous attention to detail.

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

The first mobile app I ever created and deployed to a market, Android in this case, was built using the mobile Flex “Hero” SDK. It is a simple fitness calculator called “Repper”. The Flex-based version has since been replaced by a native Android version on the market, but the original source code for the Flex-based version can be found on Github:

https://github.com/tonylukasavage/Repper-Flex

This project, while basic, was a great way to learn the pros and cons of choosing a cross platform mobile development framework over native development. Adobe’s framework allows a truly uniform experience across platforms, but comes at the expense of features and extensibility.

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

I’ll stick to AS3 dev since a comprehensive list would be too long. I’ve used FlashDevelop and FDT, but I always seem to find my way back to Flash Builder. Unlike most, I’ve never really had a problem with Eclipse based IDEs. Yeah, sometimes they’re heavier than they need to be, but I do like the familiarity. I’ve always made an effort to use the tooling created by the people controlling the underlying APIs and SDKs.

As for plugins, I don’t roll without version control. For SVN I typically use Subclipse. For git, I prefer sticking to the CLI.

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

Not much really. I’m a coder through and through so most of the tools in the Adobe CS make my head spin. I guess you could count TweetDeck since once I do dig into an AS3 based project, I tend to pummel all my Flash tweeps with questions.

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

Wow, too many to mention. Your best bet is to check out my following list on Twitter and search for “Adobe”, “Flash”, “AS3″, or “Flex.” Lots of pretty brilliant people in that collection.

If I was going to single a few out for being extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and interesting people, I’d say make sure you check out @jessefreeman, @jesterxl, @AntonioHolguin, @jonbcampos, @polygeek, @s9tpepper, @killerspaz, @nodename, @swfgeek, and of course, @seantheflexguy! @remotesynth also writes a periodic Adobe related news blog post that is great for tracking down the relevant players. Sorry to anyone I forgot to mention, there’s just too many of you to keep track of!

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

I like to stay busy so I’m usually working on something. I have a MMA fighter search app on the Android market called “Knuckle Head.” My crowning achievement with that app is not functionality or style, but the fact that I wrote an app targeting the 18-35 year old male demographic and still managed to maintain a 4.9 rating on the market. All mobile developers know just how fickle those users can be with their ratings and its a testament to the amount of effort I put into the usability of the app.

In addition I’m currently using Appcelerator to port the Android version to iPhone. It’s going very quickly so far and I have been pleased with the progress and results. I’m hoping to have that done and submitted to the Apple App Store within the next week or two, life permitting.

One other project, the one that your Adobe-centric audience may actually care about it, is “Gonzo.” Gonzo is an open source, lightweight markdown editor I’ve written using Flex 4.5 and AS3 for Adobe Air for desktop. Its a stripped-to-the-bone application that serves one purpose: helping you deliver well formed and easy to proofread web content.

I could ramble on and on about how great it is, or you can just check out my blog post:

http://savagelook.com/blog/actionscript3/gonzo-an-open-source-markdown-editor

or check out the full source on Github:

https://github.com/tonylukasavage/Gonzo

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

I think it’s a good thing for every developer, regardless of what side of the fence you are on. Competition breeds the best results, right? HTML5 and JS are slowly eating away at what used to be Flash-only functionality, which in turn is forcing Adobe to deliver very cool things like Molehill in FP11 and cross platform mobile development. Its an exciting time.

I’ve never been an avid web or Javascript developer, but I’ve always been intrigued how it can deliver relatively uniform cross browser, and thus cross-platform, experience. What really excites me now is not so much the browser based Javascript, as HTML5 is not really delivering anything that didn’t already exist via Flash, but how Javascript is making waves outside the browser.

Popular projects like Appcelerator and Node.js that use Javascript as the language of choice outside of a browser are making JS a much more appealing skill to have. I know, I know, a lot of the AS3 developers out there are saying, “Oh great, it’s like being back in the AS1 days!” But here’s the thing. We know Javascript isn’t going away anytime soon, so why not leverage your past experience with the similarly designed ECMAScript language? Why complain when you can stand out from the pack of fanboys? I think a lot of the Adobe based developers out there are selling themselves short by not taking the massive rise in Javascript’s popularity seriously.

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

I will be contributing heavily to the many available Appcelerator projects on Gitub (https://github.com/appcelerator) in the near future. In addition, I’m actively developing Gonzo (https://github.com/tonylukasavage/Gonzo), I’ve contributed BlackBerry support to the PhoneGap tool chain project Cordova (https://github.com/brianleroux/Cordova), and I made a small contribution to the suds.js library (https://github.com/kwhinnery/Suds) for handling SOAP in JS. I’m also
planning to help clean up Charles Strahan’s AS3 port of Showdown (https://github.com/cstrahan/Showdown.as), a markdown to HTML library I use in Gonzo.

I’m a BIG advocate of open source software and ever since joining Github, I have a strong tendency to contribute back to projects that I actively use.

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

Gonzo is my only current Flex project, and it is using 4.5.

what other programming languages do you know/use?

Yikes, here we go. I use or have used Flex/AS3 for mobile and desktop development. I use Java for native Android development. I use Objective-C for native iOS development. I use Javascript for Appcelerator, some Node.js experimenting, and minimal web-based development. I’ve dabbled a bit in HTML5/CSS3/JS stack for PhoneGap development. I spent the last 1.5 years of my 9 to 5 writing enterprise middleware in C# and .NET. I do lots of Linux server scripting with the shell and Perl. I’m a regex junkie. In a past life I wrote network security software in C/C++.

As you can see, I’m a fan of diverse skill sets. The larger the skill set, the better understanding you have of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each.

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

Chase around my 2 year old daughter, eat steak, drink Jack Daniel’s, and watch movies, usually in that order. In the past I was also a fitness nut and a mixed martial arts fighter. Hoping to get back to those days soon if my current physical therapy works out.

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

If anyone wants to see my work, be sure to check out http://savagelook.com/blog and https://github.com/tonylukasavage. More often than not you can find me on Twitter @tonylukasavage. I also occasionally write articles for http://buildmobile.com/author/tlukasavage/ and you’ll soon be seeing LOTS of my content at http://appcelerator.com.

any questions i should add to this interview?

You might want to ask “why” people decided to get involved with AS3/Flex/Flash. Might be fun to have a random question that has nothing to do with anything, like “What’s your favorite animal?”

ok, so what’s your favorite animal?

probably cows, very tasty.

name: Matthew Wallace
age: N/A
employer: N/A
location: N/A

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

name: Jesse Warden
age: 32
employer: self-employed (Warden D&D / Web App Solution)
location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

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

Started Flash and ActionScript in 2001. Doing our projects in Director didn’t work for a variety of reasons, namely Designers couldn’t use Director with me, their designs were limited, and animations looked better in Flash using it’s sub-pixel rendering. Also attachMovie had a HUGE development speed up compared to swapping with pre-existing items in Director’s score; that was the nail in the coffin for transitioning.

Started Flex in 2004 at 1.0; at first I didn’t like it, but as my client base changed, I fell in love with the width and heights of “100%”.

I did like 1 personal AIR project that had some pretty decent uptake, but that’s about it. Most of it has been personal projects. Most AIR I do now is mobile only.

are you practicing TDD? why/why not?

No. I’m usually a consultant. As such, I’m not often hired to build things, I’m hired to fix huge pre-existing projects, or ensure new projects get built amongst the most difficult, setup-to-fail situations possible. I’m usually put on teams who live in daily fire drills where builds fail, no one knows why, management is beyond frustrated, but it’s pitched as “a cool Flex app we’d love to have you help build”. My first order of business is clearly identify why the client is in the situation they are, and make professional recommendations, and then help implement those recommendations. Often you’re working with teams that don’t practice TDD, or who don’t know how to unit test. Other times, you have larger problems then simply writing code.

For those clients who have smaller projects on shorter deadlines such as design agencies, no. The technical debt is never paid, and the shelf life is measured in hours or days.

For startups or smaller companies building products, I only do unit tests for problem/in flux areas. These include 3rd party libraries built by another firm that consistently fails to test themselves, or complicated application that forms a core value of the app, but keeps changing because the client/stakeholders are still feeling out the functionality.

The common thing that happens for Enterprise clients is I’ll usually increase test coverage on problem areas to help reduce/remove the fire drills, specifically around service layers (code that talks to a back-end). These are unit tests written around existing code, not new code where you write the test first. Again, most of these are more for ensuring integration testing goes smoothly, not really testing the code in isolate to prevent technical debt.

I’d love to do more TDD, but most of my clients have bigger problems.

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

Cairngorm, PureMVC, ARP, and if you do Flex consulting with large clients, you have to know about Robotlegs/Swiz/Parsely.

Robotlegs is my favorite, although I’m still learning about v2.

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

Yeah, although, no paying clients yet. Most want native. It’s really fun! Single code base for 60% of your core code, and you just make your GUI flexible. That, and the apps are smaller in scope with shorter project times; nice change of pace.

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

Tie between Flash Builder 4.5 and IntelliJ 10.5. Flash Builder owns project setup and MXML/Flex. IntelliJ owns ActionScript dev. No plugins, although, I’m told I’m a moron for not using SourceMate… in fact, I think I’m the only guy on the planet who doesn’t use it every day.

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

BeyondCompare, Github, Tower… normal stuff. I’ll use TextMate for quick previews edits.

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

I don’t follow blogs; I just wait for someone to bubble up a good blog post from Twitter or Google+. Or, I’ll stumble upon one whilst doing a Google search on trying to solve some problem.

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

You don’t attend conferences, you speak at conferences. That said, I’ve tried not to this year so I can save money to fix my house up and move. That said, if you’re in the Flash/Flex world, it’s kind of weird to say “No” to Shawn Pucknell, so… spoke at FITC Toronto this year about mobile design, and speaking about refactoring + doing a workshop on Flash & Lua/Corona mobile gaming at RIA Unleashed this fall in Boston.

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

…eventually; consulting + running my business + my family takes all my time. 2 I’m working on now are:

- 1942 PlaneShooter mobile game built with Corona I want to release as a series of tutorials + source code
- a mobile Flash AIR app that works with Cocoonp2p to do some neat peer to peer stuff with devices controlling other computers & devices

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

Nope. I try to give constructive criticism to Robotlegs team, Flex SDK & Spoon team where applicable.

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

The pro’s: more buzz around tech, more people capable of building better experiences on the web, more money funneled into our industry.

The con’s: a lot of insecurity surfaced amongst Flash/Flex devs, some of which is unfounded, a lot of FUD & unnecessary mud-slinging thrown around, and a TON of beating dead horeses that doesn’t seem to have much mindshare affects. It’s also surfaced a bigger problem with a continuing reduction of Flash Player’s viability ecspecially with mobile taking off without Flash’s help. This is sad, and our rage should be directed at Adobe. That said, the damage has been done, and we’re losing a few great devs through attrition, lack of passion in just Flash/Flex, or just going with the flow and enjoying trying something mobile centric.

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

4.5 and 4.5.1

what other programming languages do you know/use?

I’ve dabbled in a ton, but I’d say Python and Lua are my 2 passions right now beyond ActionScript.

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

Spend time with family, gaming, movies, and running my business related tasks that aren’t coding related (phone calls, emails, managing other sub-contractors/co-workers, hustling, etc).

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

My Company: http://webappsolution.com
My Blog: http://jessewarden.com
Robotlegs: http://robotlegs.org
Corona: http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/

any questions i should add to this interview?

I think doing future projections is hard. That said, getting people’s input on 1. how mobile affects their work and 2. what Adobe needs to do to innovate.