I’m Erik P. Hansen. And I’m a Flash Developer. But I should really just call myself an ActionScript Developer.
I’m in the middle of watching episode two of Flasher Magazine which has an interview with Doug McCune. The thing that struck me most, and made me cringe, is when he talks about how the term “Flash Developer” is sort of a gross (I think he uses the word “gross”) term amongst Flex Developers. He says that the impression it gives is that, if you are Flash Developer, you write a lot of code that’s scattered throughout the timeline and it’s basically a mess. In his defense, he isn’t saying that’s true, that’s just the feeling Flex Developers have.
I can see where he’s coming from and understand why certain developers might feel that way. But it is so far off base it makes me a little ill. Just because you live in Flash because you are making totally customized UI elements for designers doesn’t mean that you are a sloppy programmer. You can be an ActionScript 3 jockey and like Flash and practice good coding conventions. It’s possible. I think I do.
Mostly.
Okay, confession time. I’ve got some old projects that basically fit the “Flash Developer is gross” mindset. I’ve built certain sections of certain nameless sites poorly, frankly, they make me ill. It was done that way because the client needed a fast turnaround. So, I built it as fast as possible. Which means those sections are maintenance nightmares. Okay, what the hell, I’ll come out and say it. The home page for this site is horrible. I mean, the code is horrible. It’s actually kinda sweet for the end user. It makes me cry every time I have to update it. It is wrong wrong WRONG. But the end user doesn’t know that. And the client only sorta knows that (because it takes way too long for me to make what should be simple updates). But I certainly know it and it makes me feel like a fraud whenever I have to dig into that code and see what I’ve done. I just hope that fellow developers out there know what I mean (and I know you have projects like this). The important thing is that I recognize where I have erred and I do everything I can to do things the right way. A client of mine (that is to say a designer) who might have a littel bit of experience playing with the timeline in Flash might not understand why it’ll take me longer than he thinks it should to create a linear animation. But that’s because I’m actually setting up the animation so that it’s programmatic rather than timeline based. And why would I do that? Because if he wants an element to stay on screen for half a second longer or slide out of place with stronger easing or if he wants all of the slides to fade in faster, it’s just a matter of changing a few numbers in the script rather than dragging keyframes around a timeline (which invariably screws up other parts of the animation).
So, for the record, I develop all of my SWFs in Flash. I don’t own Flex. But I am also a good coder. I try to do things the right way whenever possible. I love ColinMoock’sbooks and embrace design patterns. I’m reading and loving “The Pragmatic Programmer.”
Flash Developer vs. Flex Developer
I’m Erik P. Hansen. And I’m a Flash Developer. But I should really just call myself an ActionScript Developer.
I’m in the middle of watching episode two of Flasher Magazine which has an interview with Doug McCune. The thing that struck me most, and made me cringe, is when he talks about how the term “Flash Developer” is sort of a gross (I think he uses the word “gross”) term amongst Flex Developers. He says that the impression it gives is that, if you are Flash Developer, you write a lot of code that’s scattered throughout the timeline and it’s basically a mess. In his defense, he isn’t saying that’s true, that’s just the feeling Flex Developers have.
I can see where he’s coming from and understand why certain developers might feel that way. But it is so far off base it makes me a little ill. Just because you live in Flash because you are making totally customized UI elements for designers doesn’t mean that you are a sloppy programmer. You can be an ActionScript 3 jockey and like Flash and practice good coding conventions. It’s possible. I think I do.
Mostly.
Okay, confession time. I’ve got some old projects that basically fit the “Flash Developer is gross” mindset. I’ve built certain sections of certain nameless sites poorly, frankly, they make me ill. It was done that way because the client needed a fast turnaround. So, I built it as fast as possible. Which means those sections are maintenance nightmares. Okay, what the hell, I’ll come out and say it. The home page for this site is horrible. I mean, the code is horrible. It’s actually kinda sweet for the end user. It makes me cry every time I have to update it. It is wrong wrong WRONG. But the end user doesn’t know that. And the client only sorta knows that (because it takes way too long for me to make what should be simple updates). But I certainly know it and it makes me feel like a fraud whenever I have to dig into that code and see what I’ve done. I just hope that fellow developers out there know what I mean (and I know you have projects like this). The important thing is that I recognize where I have erred and I do everything I can to do things the right way. A client of mine (that is to say a designer) who might have a littel bit of experience playing with the timeline in Flash might not understand why it’ll take me longer than he thinks it should to create a linear animation. But that’s because I’m actually setting up the animation so that it’s programmatic rather than timeline based. And why would I do that? Because if he wants an element to stay on screen for half a second longer or slide out of place with stronger easing or if he wants all of the slides to fade in faster, it’s just a matter of changing a few numbers in the script rather than dragging keyframes around a timeline (which invariably screws up other parts of the animation).
So, for the record, I develop all of my SWFs in Flash. I don’t own Flex. But I am also a good coder. I try to do things the right way whenever possible. I love Colin Moock’s books and embrace design patterns. I’m reading and loving “The Pragmatic Programmer.”
I’m Erik P. Hansen. And I’m not a hack.