I was talking with my boss tonite about a big project coming up. He was explaining that a client was thinking of building a new site in AS2. I was dismayed. After developing with AS3 for a while, I was doing some AS2 work and hating it. After AS1, AS2 was a godsend, but […]

At Flash sites, the busiest forums discuss code rather than design.
This is odd considering the number of Flashers who straddle the developer/designer divide.
One explanation: 1) It’s hard to discuss interfaces in a way that can be represented in a forum. In fact, it’s hard to prototype interaction period. (In order to discuss an interface, you […]

Until I looked at Flex this weekend, I didn't believe Jesse Warden when he predicted that Flex would retire Flash into a Director-like, niche position.
Well, now I believe. And I feel a pang for Flash. Not because I give a damn about the technology–there will always be another technology–but because I hoped […]

I have to admit that the official description of Flex always left my head spinning with buzzwords and corporate breathlessness: RIA…bundled technologies…enterprise scale…presentation tier…standards-based.
It took this short video (the Kuwamoto one), in which a Macdobe engineer builds (in about 15 minutes) a visually arresting application that searches Flickr and fades in the resulting pictures, […]

Last week I had my first freelance Flash gig, and it was more educational than I expected–or wanted–it to be…
The fault lie entirely on my side. The mission specs were vague and the timetable insane, but I understood that going in…and ultimately failed to adapt.
As a Flash hobbyist and learner, I've developed a consistent work […]

My months-long Goldilocks-like search for a decent AS code editors recently came to a blissful conclusion here:
FlashDevelop
I was in a long, bad marriage to the Flash editor, which I couldn't leave, because I was on OS X and the alternatives were buggy (the SEPY port to Mac, ASDT in Eclipse), expensive (FDT) or undeveloped (XCode, […]