Christophe Herreman

I just got back from JavaPolis ‘06 in Antwerp (Belgium) where Adobians James Ward and Christoph Rooms did a great 3-hour session titled “Building Sexy Web Apps with Adobe Flex“. Having seen a couple of presentations on Flex 2, there was not that much new for me, but I still enjoyed the session. Not only was I (again) convinced of the power of Flex, I’m pretty sure they also convinced a lot of Java developers (99% of the audience) to give Flex a try. Ok, the Bruce Eckel quote probably helped out on that as well.

A Java minded friend of mine was ironically bashing Flash as we entered the conference room. “All right, in a few minutes I’ll know how to build an application with glowing buttons that have rollovers sounds!”. As the session progressed I could actually see his jaws drop. He was pretty impressed by the examples James showed us on connecting to different data sources, integration of POJO’s, the Data Management Services, etc. In the end, it only proofed how much prejudgment there is against Flex and Flash in general. I enjoyed the moment and had a good laugh.

James also demo’d a benchmarking application he created which showed the time and bandwidth needed to transfer and parse huge amounts of data in different ways (Json, XML, AMF0, AMF3, …).

On top of the great presentation, there were also some cool Adobe goodies they gave away like Flex T-shirts, Rubik’s Cubes and Flex 2 and ActionScript 3 API posters. All JavaPolis visitors also got a backpack, Flex 2 trial, T-shirt, coffee mug, etc.

Thanks a lot to Adobe and Christoph Rooms in particular for the free entrance tickets!

Yesterday we had a very cool user group meeting where Mike Chambers and Mike Downey talked about Apollo and Flash CS3. I won’t go into much detail because Koen De Weggheleire already did. You can read his extended review about Mike Chambers on Apollo and Mike Downey on Flash CS3.

Since we are creating a lot of cross-platform (e-learning) applications, I was especially interested in Apollo. All the features we were shown looked awesome. The fact that you can render HTML inside a SWF and then actually have access to the HTML’s DOM is a killer feature (Flash SCORM player anyone?). Also, the ease of distributing Apollo apps and being able to create OS specific installers is very nice.

The only thing that is still missing in my opinion is database support. Although Apollo apps are Internet enabled, it would still be great (even necessary) if you could work offline and have an offline database. To accomplish this in our current apps, we need to create a Zinc version with an MS Access database and a Director version with a V12 database. This is too much work and leads to too much errors. If Apollo would solve this problem, I would be a very happy man. Besides my own happiness, I feel like it is a necessary feature in order for Apollo to be taken serious, especially by desktop developers.

I just checked Amazon for the available books on AS3 and Flex 2 and thought I’d post a quick overview. So here it is.

Available

• ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook
• Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source
• Advanced ActionScript 3.0 with Design Patterns

Pre-order

• ActionScript 3.0 Pocket Reference: The Quick-Answer Guide for ActionScript Users
• Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Animation – Making things move
• Programming Flex 2: The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Rich Media Applications with Adobe Flex
• Professional Flex 2
• The Complete Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0
• Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters
• Learning ActionScript 3.0 Design: The Non-Programmer’s Guide to ActionScript 3
• Flex 2.0 User Interface Design & Development: Creating User-Friendly Rich Internet Applications
  

Video lessons

• Flex 2 Essential Training (lynda.com, CD-ROM)
  
• Flex 2 Beyond the Basics (lynda.com, CD-ROM)
  
• ActionScript 3.0 Essential Training (lynda.com, CD-ROM)

Belgian readers, check Proxis.be

• The Complete Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0
• Adobe Flex 2: Training From The Source
• ActionScript 3.0, Handboek
• Flash 8 Certified Developer Study Guide

Feel free to add any books to the comments.

Have fun reading!

Edwin van Rijkom just started a fund raising campaign to get Nicolas Cannasse a Mac to improve the workflow of HaXe development. Nicolas is well known as the man behind Mtasc and HaXe and is one of the leading people in the OSFlash community.

So if you think you can miss a few bucks and want to give him something back, contact Edwin or reply to his request on the OSFlash mailinglist.

http://www.haxe.org/mac_contributors_list_for_nicolas

The community thanks you.

[update] - Pictures are available at http://www.haxe.org/mac_constributors_list_for_nicolas/pictures

I just finished reading Rajesh Setty’s “Beyond Code - Learn to distinguish yourself in 9 simple steps“. With around 120 pages and a simple language this is an easy and enjoyable afternoon read, which you can finish in 3 to 4 hours.

The core of the book is to deliver the theory behind success in professional life. It contains a lot of real world examples which make it easy to understand. In fact, most of the times I was “aha”-ing and nodding, because many situations have already happened to me or to people in my professional environment. Having them confirmed in this book actually felt very good and gave me a secure feeling, as if someone had been listening to me. It has given me an overall motivation and strength to decide on certain things in my career and I have a more optimistic view on my career at the moment. Every chapter also contains an exercise on the theory explained. This is the hands on where you get the chance to practice the concepts in real life and start making a change.

Main outline of the book

Part 1. The Inner Game

1. Learn
2. Laugh
3. Look
4. Leave a lasting impression
5. Love

Part 2. The Outer Game

1. Leverage
2. Likeability
3. Listen
4. Lead

The Inner Game is about yourself and about how to look at work (and life) in a certain way, different than most people do. All the theory can be practiced alone. The Outer Game is about you and your environment. It’s about communicating with other people, knowing their skills and building a social network.

Quotes

Here are some of the sentences I marked. Read them and think about them. They have great value.

• “All things are created twice. Once in your mind. Once in the real world.”
• “If you are going to execute on a project that someone else sold, you are already at a disadvantage.”
• “Research says that we tend to hire fast and fire slow”
• “Hiring for attitude, training for skills.”
• “Money can be earned back, but you can’t get back time.”
• “You should already be acting as if you were already promoted, before you are handed that position.”

Conclusion 

I would highly recommend reading this book. It will make you feel more secure and confident. This is one of the books to refer to when you are in need of a guide in hard times. To quote Tom Peters: “Read it as if your life depends of it. It does!”.