Blog Archives
Adobe Flash Mobster
These are the reasons to update Flash?
- The top 10 Facebook games use the Flash Player.
- Most of the top video sites on the web use Flash Player
- Flash Player is installed on over 1.3 billion connected PCs
That first one is most definitely a reason why I would not want Flash on my computer… The second one… well, as someone who knows about “the web” I know that the top video site has started converting a lot of their videos to HMTL5 compatible in addition to showing them in Flash. (I also know this because I can’t get Flash installed correctly for Firefox on my Linux box at work so I have to open up Chrome any time I want to watch a YouTube video that hasn’t been converted yet; but sometimes they just play and I’m like “thank you HTML5”)
Finally, the last one… If I wasn’t someone who knew about “the web” I might be scared that Flash is going to connect my computer to 1.3 billion other PCs… Am I going to get hacked because of that? Is this one of those grids? Or does it have to do with the “cloud” I keep hearing about? Facetiousness aside, you would think they could have said “1.3 billion Internet connected PCs” … or “1.3 billion PCs just like yours” …
Does anyone else feel like Flash is a character in a Game Of Thrones? You may love it, or you may not, but it’s there and it’s a major character… Still you can’t help but wonder if it’s going to be the next person to get beheaded or burned alive…
Colin Moock’s ActionScript 3 Tour – Chicago
On a metaphysical level it was nice to have another day off from work. On a realphysical level, it was nice to get back into the routine. And not having to walk all the way from the entrace of Navy Pier to the back. It was a 10 minute walk and I was trucking it.
I took a picture of Colin with my cameraphone, and I was all excited cause I found out the USB cord for my real camera connects to my phone, too. But when I connected it, Windows couldn’t find the software, and so, no picture.
Anyway…
Colin was a great presenter, and I applaud him for presenting for essentially 8 hours (he kept saying 9, but that included the lunch break). I guess when the name is “ActionScript from the Ground Up” I shouldn’t have been expecting any real advanced coverage of the topic. I got a great review of OOP, though, and I’m sure for all the Flash “design” type people there, it was way too fast. It was essentially a 9 week course crammed into 9 hours with no time for homework. So, yeah, I’m sure there were some minds blown. But I also am sure there were people who were bored out of their minds. I was close, but I hung on and managed to pick up things here and there even in the OOP stuff. That said, I’m pretty sure I can skip his book (sorry Colin!) since the reviews on Amazon say that it goes a lot into the OOP stuff. But that frees up some cash, so I can get the RIAs with Flex and Java book I’ve been wanting forever, or else Adobe’s Flex 3 training book. And for Adobe, I think that was the point anyway; just to get people more exposure to ActionScript and make them more interested in using it; so they can stay on top of Silverlight.
I am also glad I got to see how similar ActionScript is to Java. I’d say that AS is probably more like Java than JavaScript. Of course, names for languages really don’t tell you anything about them.
I overloaded myself with the Flex/ActionScript by reading my Flex 2 with ActionScript 3 book on the train and bus to the event. Now, I will try to busy myself with a game I’d like to develop using Flex/ActionScript, and try to also fit in an extra credit project at work using Ruby on Rails. My FA side project will be a good one since I can probably move quickly to advanced Flex/ActionScript concepts since the languages are so similar to what I already know. The RoR project will have a bit more of a learning curve since I’m still getting to know Ruby.
Just an FYI (while I was finding the picture below), I came across this TIOBE software site that ranks programming languages. As of Dec 2007, Ruby is at #9 while ActionScript is #25 (glad to see it’s at least that high; MXML doesn’t count as a programming language). Java is #1 with a 20% share, so I guess it’s good that I’ve got that one down pretty well.
Nels Wadycki 