₦airaland Forum

Sorry, missed the follow up


Yeah there is a preloader, and it shows progress.
It's very subtle, watch the 'M' on the first screen, it pulses, but fills with white the more it goes.

Hey guys, glad to see some interest in Flex.   I wrote about 20 flex related postings a while back, before they were deleted (I didnt follow some rule, i forget which).

I work for Adobe, I've been working with flex for about 4 years (since version pre-1.0).  Now I work with our consulting arm, developing flex apps for high profile companies.  I also advise on the future of the flex sdk (and you can too! Flex is now open source )


@uspry1:
Glad to see you taking your moderation duties seriously, we've needed that.   not so glad to see your post above, looks like a flashdevelop ad! :-)  I will agree, though, that it is a great free alternative to the FlexBuilder IDE.  However, discounts are available, contact me for details.

@davidt:
In a nutshell, Flex is great for creating rich, interactive software user experiences that run on the flash player, or AIR , in the case of desktop apps (AIR = Adobe Integrated Runtime).   I say 'Software' because it encompasses web , desktop, and in the future, mobile applications.  Flex applications are purely front end, and connect to any flavour of middle tier technologies (asp/php/coldfusion/j2ee/etc).  This has been possible for some time now with Flash, but Flex revolutionizes the development process.  Flash was made with designers in mind, they are quick to grasp the concept of a 'stage', 'timeline' , and drawing/editing tools.  Flex was built off the base Flash Player API, and it is essentially a framework , with dozens of classes that allow you to create applications with pure code, and no knowledge of the flash ide, in about one-third of the time it would take a flash developer.   Using flex, you can leverage your common development practices seen in software engineering:  Design Patterns, Code versioning, Agile methodologies, Unit Testing, Test Driven Development, etc.   The Flex SDK is free, so you can write your apps in notepad, and download the compiler , but of course you'd be MUCH more efficient using Flex Builder, and / or Flashdevelop.  The offer code hinting, and other features to REALLY speed up development.  If you can afford it, get Flex Builder; one HUGE benefit is being able to debug your apps with breakpoints, as well as inspect the memory consumption of your classes in realtime. 

I have to run, but feel free to drop me a line with any questions you might have  : ekz[at]adobe.com .  Here are some links:

Gallery of flex applications:
http://www.flex.org/showcase

Getting started (and other) videos:
http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Getting+Started

All Flex and Flex Builder Tutorials (by Adobe):
You will see links to PDFs and also online documentation
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/

Tutorials from the flex community:
http://www.cflex.net/

You can check some of my related posts on NL , though its nothing compared to what i had up before:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?action=profile;u=148155;sa=showPosts

I also strongly recommend subscribing to flexcoders yahoo email list
There are tens of thousands of past tips/help from people having common problems.
You can subscribe, or just search the mail archive.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/


Here's an excerpt from the product page:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/overview/

"Flex provides a modern, standards-based language and programming model that supports common design patterns. MXML, a declarative XML-based language, is used to describe UI layout and behaviors, and ActionScript™ 3, a powerful object-oriented programming language, is used to create client logic. Flex also includes a rich component library with more than 100 proven, extensible UI components for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs), as well as an interactive Flex application debugger.

RIAs created with Flex can run in the browser using Adobe Flash® Player software or on the desktop on Adobe AIR™, the cross-operating system runtime. This enables Flex applications to run consistently across all major browsers and on the desktop. And using AIR, Flex applications can now access local data and system resources on the desktop. Both Flash Player and Adobe AIR are available as a free download on Adobe.com."

@lojik:
My favorite is :
lojik[13] = "lots & lots of others";

Too funny. Anyone that gets AS is all good in my book, even though you use swishmax (ugh).
Are you using AS3 yet? and what about flex?

I'll drop you a line. the name is ikezi.

I like the way this Lojik kid thinks

We used to deploy swf projector apps all the time back in the day (before sqllite even, back in 98), and burn a pc and mac version to a 'smart cd' that autoplayed the right version accordingly.

However, an even better idea is to skip the projector and build it on AIR, so you can run it on Win/Mac/Linux.
What IDE do you use for your AS? And please dont say swish or something silly.

any questions?

Luca brasi sleeps with the fishes, no?

A very good friend of mine has a wonderful online tool for creating site maps.
check it here:
http://www.writemaps.com/

Nice one guys,

As for WHY, it has to do with the assignment operator and how it behaves in EcmaScript (JS was the originating language of ECMAscript , which is rather rampant right now (mambenanje: Actionscript is ECMAScript as well, but AS1 was a poor, incomplete implementaion. Get on board with AS3 man! )

Operators can be thought of as functions , in a sense that they evaluate/output/return a value, as well as performing their primary function. '+' is an operator, so '5+3' , adds the two numbers, and 'evaluates to' 8.
similarly, i = 3 does the assignment, assigning the right operand to the left operand, but it also actually 'evaluates to' 3
In general, doing if( x = y) does the assignment, but is also similar to doing if (y )
its a handy trick in some situations, at least for reducing lines of code, eg: writing this:

if (x = y)

is similar to doing

x = y;
if(x),

But even more interesting is i = 0 || 23
(Kheme got this one)
This has to do with logical assignment, one of my favorite
The logical OR operator also 'equates to' a value (just like the assignment operator), and in in JS v1.2 and later, it is not simply boolean true or false, but actually returns either the value of the first operand (if it does not equate to false (or 0, null, undefined, or the empty string) ), or the value of the second operand (regardless of what it is)
so the right operand (0 || 23) evaluates to just 23.

This is usefu for shorthanding your code:
lets say, you want to do this:
" if x is empty string, set y = 23, or else, set y = x "

You could write:

if (x == ""{
y = 23
} else{
y=x;
}

But the short hand way is to do

y = x || 23

But you can even condense it further to just

x ||=23

though i think that's only in JS2.0 and later (you can do it in actionscript though )

Cool stuff man. I remember you, how've you been?
Are you not 'flashing' any more? you were on the right track, man.

What did you think of mindseye.com?

In responding to another post, i found out that a site I built is still around, even though the company is no more (roughly 2 years ago).
I wanted to share it with you guys, as it's one of my favourites, from front to back, hopefully it inspires those of you that enjoy building flash sites.

http://www.mindseye.com

The backend runs on coldfusion+SQLServer , and I interfaced the middleware with the flash front end using coldfusion remote objects for seamless calls from Actionscript. It is all CMS driven, using Mindseye Element, a custom CMS we built, also in coldfusion. The flash bit was written in Flash 8, and is 80% actionscript driven, with few timeline keyframes. Was quite challenging , but a memorable experience. It was also the last flash site i built before going full on into flex applications. Enjoy.

(2cents, don't come here talking about SEO either! )

See silence, where are the web developers?

Afam? Timmy? mambenanje? kazey? Where are you chaps?

Maybe it's because of time zone difference sha, we'll see who responds by morning.

Man I was HEAVY into CF from CF 4 through CFMX. Those were the days.
The work we did is all gone, but I revisited some CF work in 05/06, these are two of the sites
http://www.aspensnowmass.com
http://www.irobot.com
http://www.mindseye.com (It's flash connecting to CF remote objects. I did all the flash as well , still love this site)

Kudos to 2¢ for the idea of quizzes, but I think these people need a challenge
This one is simple as well, but requires a bit of understanding on javascript assignment operators.

Just by looking at the below, can you tell WHICH of the alerts will popup, and WHY.
If you can't figure out which, run the code. Then try to figure out WHY.

(As a BONUS, what does the 1st alert print out? and WHY)

<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled</title>
<script>
function testYourKnowledge() {


var i = 0 || 23;

/* 1st Alert */
alert(i);


if(i = true){
/* 2nd Alert */
// Yes in the line above it's a single equals sign
alert("Hello";
}



if (i=false){
/* 3rd Alert */
alert("wetin";

if(i){
/* 4th Alert */
alert("how far";
}
}

/* 5th Alert */
alert(i);

}
</script>
</head>
<body onLoad="testYourKnowledge()"></body>
</html>

hrm, i forget how js behaves with poorly written code ,

BUT :

1) If javascript auto-casts '1' to a boolean, and equates it to true, and
2) Assuming alert casts untyped vars as a strings,

then the alert will show '3 each time


ps: Just kidding about poorly written code, JS itself is crappy because it allows for loose typing , and untyped vars, i has no type, and alert should be strict and take strings only, that being said, i miss javascript, i could be lazy

Please, from scratch.
I'm not a big fan of un-originality, and much more, I hate when people cant explain code that they've supposedly written.
The idea is to share your work based on your particular skill level so please come with YOUR own work, it doesn't have to be elegant and/or perfect, because I can gaurantee you we will all learn from each other after this exercise. If you're better than me, I'll learn what I can do better, if you're not as good I am, then I'll learn what common problems that inexperienced developers face. Remember guys, this is for a greater good.

no comment
(for now sha)

Perhaps a long overdue attempt to get Nigerian piracy thwarted, or
perhaps an attempt to get more attention to the adobe brand for my future intentions, or
perhaps nothing at all to do with me, or
perhaps everything to do with me,
who knows?

Programming design patterns are programming design patterns. Whether they are J2EE patterns, C++ patterns, Python Patterns, etc. For example, MVC can be implemented in all of the above, and not just in the 'Java World'. In software, a design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design (others, dont confuse this with graphic design, it leans more toward software architecture). A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.

Having said that, patterns are more common in OO langugages because of their very nature: the languages were designed with code (and entity) reusability as a priority. Regardless, by the definition of what a pattern is, you can have patterns in ANY language.

Well said, everyone.
I suppose, I was going beyond frameworks, and talking more about patterns you've implemented on your own from scratch.

I use the MVC framework , Cairngorm, when building desktop apps that run on AIR.
It makes use of the command, singleton, and service locator patterns, among others.
I seem to often also use:
1) Abstract Factory
2) Mediator
3) Memento Pattern

Okay, your question is a very serious question to me,
1) because i dont like miscommunication, and
2) i want to be sure we are all on the same page.

Just to clarify to others, yes we are still building the contact manager.
Did anyone say otherwise? Please let me know so we can sort out the miscommunication.

cmon:
That's actually the concept. For you to think of "integrated thinking" I guess you are on track. There's this article I read on spelling words. They actually said if the first and last characters of a word are left intact and you shuffle the characters in between them, your brain intepretes the actual word. Something like that. So I kind of know what I am doing.

What crock, Sure it's a proven fact, but so what? It's like saying, people associate butterflies with happiness. Doesnt mean i am going to have butterflies on my business site, because people's perceptions will override the scientific fact. My point is that everyone's perception of your experiment will be that you are a horrible speller.

powerblaze:
Sup yal! I'm a big fan of adobe flexbuilder2 and 3. I've been able to do great stuffs with it. Does anyone know where I can get pdf tutorials on it?

I've posted them in the flex topic:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-115507.0.html#msg2069186

@powerblaze
Here are tutorial links you asked for

All Flex and Flex Builder Tutorials (by Adobe)
You will see links to PDFs and also online documentation
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/

Also a great resources for tutorials:
http://www.cflex.net/

I also strongly recommend subscribing to flexcoders yahoo email list
There are tens of thousands of past tips/help from people having common problems.
You can subscribe, or just search the mail archive.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/

Chei, see implied yabbing. Abeg, email them directly next time,
If you dont want my 2 kobo, dont hold your hat open in my presence!

For those programmers with experience in the workforce, what design patterns do you use most frequently? Factories? Decorator? Command patterns? etc etc, I'm curious to know because I'd like to leverage nairaland to conduct a survey of what should be expected of nigerian programmers as we continue to evolve together. I know it's only a small subset of us, but it would be a good case study.

Also, if you don't know what a design pattern is, or you dont use them, it doesnt mean you arent a solid programmer, please share and discuss anyways. Or if you want to learn, ask away, professional growth in numbers serves the greater good.

@geebengs
You don't need to use C++ , you know, use AIR to deploy your app to the desktop.
That's what I'm doing. Have you used AIR before?

Na lie, I use hopstop everyday. Literally, I didnt even know.
reading his bio now.

Nice one, 2¢

1) Use whatever language you want, spend 5 minutes or 5 weeks.
2) Write all the code from scratch.
3) When done, you can check the code into googe code : http://code.google.com/hosting/
if u want i can create a project directory for all of us, and grant you access. send your email addresses to me : ekz [ at ] adobe.com

@rookie:
Music to my ears. Why dont you post here more often?
I'm glad that you see the big picture, because that's the direction i hope this initiative goes: more collaborative than competitive.
However, it's not always prudent to go from A to B in a straight line. I know myself, and I know my people, and everyone loves good, fair competition, In this case, 'good' because it's easy, and 'fair' because we're all delivering the same thing. Moving forward, future efforts can evolve in whatever direction we all want.

Stay tuned, and please continue to chime in.

Guys now, no be so. Time dey too short. Let's discuss how man will make it, and fashi the little things.

@mambenanje : I wouldnt call it criticising. the bloggers talk about companies, and give their opinion on them. I think it's great that they are exposing these companies to us, but I would take their opinions with a grain of salt, and not as grounded criticism. Bookmark them, you wont be sorry :-)

That aside, your signatures says you're flash certified. Very cool. How long have you been using flash and when did you receive your certification? Under macromedia or more recently under Adobe? Please let me know where I can see more of your flash work. (other than 2faceidibiafans )

Not limiting anyone to any platform.
If you're a mobile developer, then develop for your mobile OS, be it symbian, windows, etc.
True it would be ideal if we all stuck to a platform, but everyone has their respective strengths.

mambenanje:
I want posting of stuffs like nairaland which is successfull by Seun
and others like Webmasters of Africa which is also faring by my2cents

No, you specifically said you want postings of stuff like "facebook, yahoo or hi5.com". Afam has a sound point, because accomplishments on that scale are already in the public eye. If you want to talk about sites with great potential to be big, that's a different story. You wouldn't have mentioned 'stats' and 'making it big'

Question, what are you seeking out? First the bill gates of Africa, now the yahoo.com of Africa, are you evaluating competition? Looking for a way to reassure yourself that you are among the big boy developers in Naija?

If you have genuine curiosity of people 'making it big', then stay tuned to these african blogs, and look up the companies they talk about :
http://timbuktuchronicles..com/
http://www.afrigadget.com
http://www.whiteafrican.com

Those of you that have used apple products in the last several years will agree that they have continuously impressed the market with their innovative ideas around user experience. Whether its the multi-touch iphone screen, or the expose features of OS X, you can see/feel the difference in the experience.

Now they are sharing some of their thoughts with us. Developers are now able to develop for the iPhone, and to further enable them to create great apps, apple is sharing their Approach to Human Interaction. This document contains Human Interaction Guidelines, and even though they are particular to the iPhone, they are VERY much applicable across every electronic experience, be it phone, desktop, web, kiosk, etc.

Have look, and learn something!
(ps: There is also a link to the pdf version on the top left of the page)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneHIG/Introduction/chapter_1_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006596-CH1-SW1