PokerCoder announced that the 8th Adobe sponsored Poker tournament was now open for registration a few days ago and there are apparently only litarally a couple of places left so if you\’re quick and qualify to enter then get along to the PokerCoder site and register pronto.
The Logic Bureau just posted on this user group. It’s not a new user group and though it has more than 350 members it is still relatively under the radar. I know I didn’t know about this group until a couple of months ago. They are an excellent group for beginners and intermediates, with incredible on site facilities like fully equipped developer/designer labs and lecture rooms available for the members, enabling them to not only hear great speakers but also to get their hands dirty in a work lab environment. There’s lots more but I won’t repeat what’s on the Logic Bureau site. Have a read and get along.
It seems that recently people, good people, are coming out of the woodwork to point out that they might not always like to deliver their Flash Platform solutions as OO solutions. I hear the collective gasp of horror and revilement from the community of Actionscript developers who have spent years refining their coding and OO methodologies to a point where they can code in Java with little effort. I myself am one of those coders. However, I am forever using the term ‘Pragmatic’ when I speak to staff and peers alike. Look at the big picture. Not everyone wants a solution that takes 2 months to deliver because you have to develop redundant, reusable, unit tested OO code. Many clients want throw away solutions and have no likelihood of code reuse. The problem is that we’ve become enamored with the idea of perfecting and using only code. Anyone who speaks of the timeline does so with contempt and some even call for it’s removal altogether, suggesting that it is the province of antiquated, knuckle dragging wanna-be coders. Not like us ‘real’ coders. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re lucky enough to be in the States then you also have the good fortune to be able to get Flash and Flex Developer magazine. Ewa (the Editor) tells me there are no fixed plans to launch in Europe yet, but if you’d like to see it here then let me know and if there are enough of us I’ll petition FFD. This is a shame because it genuinely is for the true developer. This month’s issue is packed full of developer goodness.
Amongst the excellent and useful topics are:
All good $h!t and relevant whether you are an intermediate or advanced developer. But it doesn’t end there. The magazine caters for the whole Flash Platform : Flex, Flash, Actionscript, Flash Lite, AIR, associated work flow tools, editors, databases etc. Anything and everything that works with or in the Flash Platform.
Every once in a while, someone actually uses our development tool of choice to produce something which is not only useful, but also helps throw our lives in to perspective. The people at poodwaddle have built just such an application. Read the rest of this entry »
That’s right. Adobe want’s to know if there’s a correlation between Flash developers (or any other kind of developer) and Poker playing (It can be any kind. It doesn’t have to be Texas Hold’em). Complete the survey and see for yourself. Once you have completed it you will not be able to do it again (so get it right), but you will get to see the results coming in every time you return to it. Read the rest of this entry »
I have said in the past, there are far to few female Flashers out there (well, haven’t we all at one point or another?). On the whole, the female Flashers that are out there are generally designers rather than developers. This is a shame as the few female developers I have had the pleasure of working with have brought a very different and thought provoking style with them and it has been very productive to be exposed to this (both for the team members and for the project). I have plugged the Flash Goddess site before , for the same reasons. And I hope to encourage both Female Flash developers and promote the site again by mentioning that Flash Goddess are running a competition for female Flash devs/designers. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve ever used the London Underground you’ll know that the beautifully presented, schematically laid out underground map is not, in fact, representative of the geographical layout of the tube lines at all. Worse still, some of these apparently disperate stations are infact a stones throw away from each other in reality, but as this isn’t represented on the map, making the requisite journey alterations needed to get anywhere on time when a line is suspended, or a station is closed or the wrong kind of leaves are on the track or some other such excuse causes the tube to slow to a crawl or stop all together, is often pure guess work and many of these short cuts are a black and secret art known only to cabbies, cockneys and underground staff.
Well, London Underground have made a really useful Flash app which shows the underground lines in their true geographical layout, over which you can superimpose the stations and, more importantly, the roads. Although it is of the central underground area and some stations are missing, so we do loose out on that but at least it’s a better orientation of London. Realistically TFL need to make it a comprehensive map as this will definately change peoples travelling habits and allow us all to optimise out journeys on the fly.
Vocalise TTS is the new character animation extension for Macromedia Flash mx 2004 that uses text to speech to create talking characters. The speech is a bit Stephen Hawkings but I expect that’s because it’s a text to speech generator.
Ok, so despite my recent rant on certain forums, MM have actually made a bit more of a deal about what Flash can do on the Macromedia - Flash Platform page of their site. But it’s still not enough.
Learn AS3 for Flex and Flash
The latest issue of Flash and Flex Developer is now out!