Lua for ActionScript Developers: Crash Course

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Preface

I needed a break from Flex for mobile, and wanted to see if there were any other good application frameworks that allowed you to deploy to multiple devices beyond Adobe AIR. Tony Lukasavage had written about a few recently, and Matt Guest had written about his quick experience using Corona for games based on the buzz around Robert Nay, the 14 year old who knocked Angry Birds out of the top mobile game slot via Bubble Ball.

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JSFL Script to Ensure Actual ActionScript Classes Exist for Symbols

One way to design or skin ActionScript 3 projects is using the Flash IDE for graphical assets.  You export your FLA as an SWC, and you can utilize those assets in your AS3 and/or Flex project.  Flash CS3/CS4/CS5 have the ability to link to an ActionScript 3 class that represents the code behind the Symbol.  If the Flash IDE doesn’t find the class in its source paths, it’ll create one for you.

The downside is, when you compile, you do not get errors if the Flash IDE didn’t find a class for a particular Symbol that’s set to have one.  Maybe you mis-typed the package path or class name.  Maybe you forgot to set the class path for the FLA.  Maybe the FLA is in the wrong place.  Whatever the reason, your code “won’t work” and you won’t know why.  You may not get code hints in Flash Builder / FDT / IntelliJ, and certain other dependencies may be missing as well and you’ll be left wondering why.

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Adobe, Please Bring Flash Builder Up To Par

This post is long overdue, and I want to personally apologize to Adobe for taking so long to post it. Adobe (Macromedia?) thrives on customer feedback, early, and makes a serious effort to prioritize on it whilst comparing to their own market research data they do by proactively reaching out. I haven’t done this in a long while, focusing on business vs. the actual tools & runtimes.

It’s long overdue. Flash Builder 4 is a mess, and hopefully fixing/improving the following items will bring it up to par.  If you are a product engineer, skip the intro.

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How Recruiters Can Hire Flex Developers

The following article is for both recruiters, and interviewers. After doing hiring, getting hired, and helping facilitate others getting connected, there seems to be a lot of confusion in our industry about how Flex Developers work. The following article describes the different types of Flex Developers, their rates, and how to interview & hire them.

Please keep in mind the following is full of (accurate) generalities to make things more concise and easier to understand.  The Flash/Flex community is very diverse, and as such there are many exceptions to the below.

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