360Flex: Stoked to get a break and hear great devs.

02/23/2010 in Community, RIA Comments

360Flex is just over one week away and I am getting super stoked to not only get a break from the craziness, but to also hear and learn from some of the best devs in the business. I have to thank my employer for sending me, or else I wouldn’t be making the trek to San Jose…that and the fact that there is no limit to alcohol on my expense report. Yeah, what were they thinking ;) . So I decided to sit down and get a tentative schedule ready.

First off I will say that I wish I could duplicate myself and attend all of the classes available, but nonetheless I have to choose one from each available time slot. My first run through the session were chosen based on what’s relative to my current job, after all they are footing the bill. My second run through was what I would personally want to see, and honestly they were really close in comparison…

There are a few of speakers that I would choose no matter what…namely Deepa Subramaniam, Jesse Warden and Jeff Tapper. I have seen them all speak before and really enjoy their sessions. So, below is the list of topics I am currently choosing to attend, excluding the key notes and group sessions that I will of course attend:

Day 1:
  • 1:00pm – 5:00pm: Joel Hooks – Hands-on Development with the RobotLegs AS3 Framework

    • *I wouldn’t miss this session for anything. I am slowly digging into RobotLegs as I can outside of the office. I know the basics but am definitely looking forward to learning from Joel in a hands-on environment.

Day 2:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Richard Lord – Designer Last Application Architect.
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Daivd Hassoun – Going Deep w/OSMF – OMG
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Jesse Warden – RobotLegs on Top of GAIA Framework
  • 4:00pm – 5:20pm: Huyen Tue Dao – Greenthreading in Flex

Day 3:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Deepa Subramaniam – What’s New in Flex 4 that’s NOT Spark!
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Gary Rogers – Automated Build and Deployment Processes.
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Elad Elrom – Building Applications using Test Driven Development (TDD)

Day 4:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Jeff Tapper – Ouch, it hurts when I do that.
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Caleb Adam Haye – Better Builds: Continuous Integration for RIAs
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Eric Fickes – Adobe is from Mars, Microsoft is from Uranus: A View from the Server.

git: Learn how to branch

01/31/2010 in RIA Comments

This demo runs through quickly showing you how to create and manage branches with git. Hopefully you learn a few tips on how to manage branching. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments with any questions and I will be glad to help.

Getting pumped up for Flash and the City 2010

01/27/2010 in RIA Comments

Near the end of 2009 my boss approached me about training for 2010. I had complained enough about the lack of training in 2009, and about how important community events are. This happened around the same time that Elad Elrom (@EladElrom) announced on Twitter that he was preparing the community for Flash and the City 2010 (FATC2010). I had just registered and was stoked for what ended up a great showing at RIAUnleashed, kudos to Brian Rinaldi (@remotesynth), and jumped right into registering for FATC2010. This, mind you, was even before the majority of the listed speakers were secured yet, so now heck yeah it’s even better. With a $99 early bird and a $299 registration cost now, you can’t afford to miss an event like this. Not only will the topic based track be awesome, and the unreal lineup of speakers, but something brand new is being offered, a City track. The City track is a great idea, and a sweet way to see NYC. I have been to NYC many times and have never seen some of the City track events offered!

I had talked to Jose Russo (@joseeight) at RIAUnleashed about FATC2010, and he mentioned really building up the marketing and making FATC2010 stand out not only with the content but as a real event to remember. This was great and I completely understood the stance…given that I have been to many conferences with only time to fly in, hit the hotel and classes and fly out. This is the first event that I am bringing my wife along with me, and she is actually excited to be going, and the first time I feel she won’t be bored out of her skull waiting on me to get out of classes.

What I really like about it is that it’s an East Coast deal. Don’t get me wrong, I love the West Coast, but 3 years in a row for MAX?? Come on. I have been going to MAX since it was DEVCON back in the early 2000s, a couple times in Orlando and one liver threatening time in New Orleans. I swore off alcohol at least 3 times that week, seriously. We were Macromedia Partners at the time, had a big private shindig on Bourbon, lots of free booze, etc. Somehow I made it back to the hotel after leaving The Dungeon, and I still swear I saw Glenn Danzig there… I even paid my own way and bummed a room off an old friend to make it to San Fran in 2008. I got to share an elevator with Ben Forta, YES! I didn’t make it to LA in 2009, and that sucks, but hey I had a job so all good there! So, having an East coast deal and having it in NYC just completely rocks!

I am going to at least two larger events this year, 1: FATC2010, and 2: MAX in LA, yes in that order. I am still digging for funds for 360Flex and will hopefully go back to RIAUnleashed if not one other 1-2 day events like Flash on Tap. These venues not only let you stretch your legs a little, but offer great training in a small presenter to attendee ratio. Some of the biggest names in the Flash/Flex community are at the events giving tips and tricks and real life experiences. They are all real people that will shoot the shit, drink a beer, even buy you a beer (thanks @JesterXL for the brew in Waltham, MA) because they truly have a passion for what they do. So get involved, follow and discover the passion our community has for RIA development, I know I love it.

*Note: I am including twitter profiles because you should follow these people!

Not to leave anyone out, they are all awesome people in the community, but I really look forward to meeting in person folks like Jesse Freeman (@TheFlashBum), Elad Elrom (@EladElrom), Joel Hooks (@jhooks), Garth Braithwaite (@GarthDB), Peter Elst (@PeterElst), Grant Skinner (@gskinner), James Ward (@jlward4th), Jeff Tapper (@jefftapper) and Kevin Schmidt (@schmidtkevinall).

I look forward to seeing Kevin Suttle (@KevinSuttle), Jose Antonio Marquez Russo (@JoseEight) and Jesse Warden (@JesterXL) again of course. I heard that Chuck Freedman (@chuckstar) and Sean Moore (@seantheflexguy) will be there as attendees and look forward to meeting them for sure. Keep your fingers crossed for Antonio Holguin (@AntonioHolguin), he is trying hard to make it! I just wish Todd Anderson (@bustardcelly) was making it too, he rocks!

Most of all I want a picture with and a hug from Stacey Mulcahy (@bitchwhocodes) :) . Hell, I might even have to give a big ole East Tennessee Bear hug to Yakov Fain (@yfain), he seems really cool but a tad uptight.

See you all in NYC in just a few short months!!


AS3 Open Source: Custom Form Validation

01/20/2010 in RIA Comments

During a normal week I may write 2-3 form based applications in either Flash or Flex and each of them have specific form values that need validated. Last week I decided to begin to write a custom validator in Pure AS3 that I can reuse and simply pass it an array of information to validate against. The first iteration is a simple check against a value and a parameter of what would make it invalid, for example a String and if it == “”. The validation built into Flex is “ok”, but I needed some more portable, extensible and very reusable.

I have included a sample test instantiation for using the classes, simply checking for String values, but you can pass basically anything you like to the validator and it will check the value against the parameter that would make it invalid. I am sure this will change a lot over the next few weeks as I add validation types, values and such, so I will continue to commit the source to git. I am trying to keep it as generic as possible, to use in both Flash and Flex projects. Custom events are fired on pass and fail, passing along an array of information based on the fields that failed. You can then call your methods to submit the form or throw Alerts, etc…up to you.

I have posted the initial classes on my github account with an MIT Open Source license.

You can grab the early framework or fork the repository at github here > NumbKnuckle Validator

Flash and FDT: Simple workflow video

01/03/2010 in RIA Comments

One thing I have been wanting to do is create a demo showing a simple walk through with Flash CS4 IDE and the FDT Actionscript 3.0 editor. Some things early on messed with my head and were hard to get just right, so hopefully this walk through will help out anyone starting to use FDT as their AS3 editor of choice.

Get the associated FL_Package class I speak about here.