Tales From The Trenches - Flex

Flex training in San Francisco

Mon, 24 May 2010 09:30:00 -0700

I'll be teaching Flex Fundamentals in San Francisco next week, brought to you by the folks at AcademyX. There are still a few slots left in the class -- if you've been looking for a good way to start learning Flex, this class may be for you! :) More details and information on how to register are available at the AcademyX website. Hope to see you there! -nolan

More Flex training in San Francisco

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:50:00 -0700

I'll be teaching another round of Flex classes next week, at the AcademyX/San Francisco building. Flex Fundamentals, Jan 11-13
Flex Intermediate, Jan 14-15 There are still a few slots available in both classes -- sign up while you can! :) -nolan

Flex training in San Francisco

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:28:00 -0700

I'll be teaching 2 Flex classes next week, at the AcademyX/San Francisco building. Flex Fundamentals, Dec 14-16
Flex Intermediate, Dec 17-18 There are still a few slots available in both classes -- sign up while you can! :) -nolan

Back from CFinNC!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:33:00 -0700

I made it back from CFinNC, late Sunday night, extremely jet lagged, but in one piece, and very happy I made the decision to go. First, I want to thank Dan Wilson, and the rest of the folks that helped put this conference together. Not being able to attend MAX this year, I was very happy there was another ColdFusion-related conference, so soon after MAX. The fact that it was over a weekend made it much easier to schedule. As you may have read on CFCDev, Dan and I exchanged several posts about information on the conference website, what was/wasn't up to date, etc. Eventually, Dan and I took the conversation off-list (and off-email, talking more in person at the conference), and what became very clear to me is how genuinely personal he takes his work in the CF community; putting together this conference was no exception, and I think the quality of the CFinNC conference is proof of that. Everything seemed to run very smoothly -- registration was quick and painless, parking was a snap, wifi was up and accessible throughout the venue, the staff were all very courteous and happy to help. Nothing about the conference seemed out of place, or an obvious indicator that this was a newer project -- I was quite happy with how well everything was organized. Session highlights for me included: Mike Brunt -- 10 Steps To A High Performing ColdFusion Application, Clustering ColdFusion Great talk on performance testing, and all kinds of related items. Mike came with a real world demo that required not one, not two, but THREE laptops to get everything running (so it looked like it does in the real world) -- talk about putting a serious amount of effort into your lecture! My only regret is meeting Mike just minutes before I had to leave for my flight home; I was unable to say much more than "nice presentation" before I had to go. He was wearing a Beatles / Sgt Pepper shirt; I suspect we would have gotten along quite well. :) Jason Dean -- Intro to Securing CFML Applications I met Jason at cf.Objective(), and caught his other talk on security. This one is the precursor to said cf.Objective() talk. Both are worth checking out; not too much overlap, you'll learn something new at each one. And you can play the drinking game "take 2 sips every time Jason says 'validation'". :) Brian Kotek -- Intro to the Swiz Framework Nice first look at Swiz, with some notes on how it compares/contrasts to Caringorm, what Swiz is/isn't, how it can help w/ event handling, auto-wiring and tons more. For anyone new to Swiz, this was a great introduction. Andy Matthews -- jQuery & AIR: Desktop Development for the Front End Designer While in NC, I was staying with my friend Rob who is typically known as a .NET developer. Half way through this presentation, I was tempted to call Rob and have him come watch -- I'm continually impressed by AIR/JavaScript fun that can be had in projects. Andy did a great job with this; very well put together presentation. Definitely worth checking out. Joe Rinehart -- CF Inspirational Session I was not sure what to expect from the "Inspirational ColdFusion" session. Joe gave a great talk about what he's been up to for the last year-ish, how he'd moved away from CF, and how he's coming back into the fold. His presentation was hilarious, and it was one of the more comical yet compelling presentations I've ever seen. Joe missed his calling as a sitcom writer. :) Rick Root -- Using Java in ColdFusion Applications Rick gave a great introduction to using Java classes in CF. This is a topic that I often see on lists/blogs, but it's always done as the answer to some other question, so the context of said blog posts often makes it hard for people to see that "first look" at how you can dip directly into Java from ColdFusion, and utilize both to improve your applications. That's where Rick's presentation came into play; don't go if you're already doing big crazy things like writing your own Hibernate wrapper for CF7, but if you want to see just how the CF data types are tied to Java data types under the hood (and how to utilize the power of both), then Rick's talk is worth checking out. Bob Silverberg -- CF9 ORM - Part 1 and 2 Admittedly, I've been kind of dismissing the Hibernate integration in CF9 up until now. Partially because none of my clients have upgraded yet (tho 1 is talking about doing so), and partially because between Transfer and/or some homegrown things, I haven't really had a need to learn much more about it. Bob's talk was so good that I have now officially started "drinking the Kool-Aid", and want to start using CF/Hibernate whenever possible. I may very well (ahem) "borrow" content from his preso and give a similar demo for Saccfug later in the year. I would like to have seen a code sample in action, but the code presented in the slides was clear and "real world enough", that maybe that's not necessary. It was also good seeing the familiar faces that I met at cf.Objective() -- Ben Nadel, Jason Dean, and others I'm forgetting -- as well as catching up with my friend Rob who moved to NC several years ago. North Carolina is a really pretty area -- trees everywhere, decent weather (and this is coming from a spoiled California punk *g*), and EVERYone I met was extremely nice and polite all weekend. Even the grits I had for dinner were pretty good! :) Nice job, CFinNC, I hope you do it again next year. -nolan

Back From CF Objective!

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:14:00 -0700

I got home late last night from CF Objective (stayed in town through the weekend to visit with friends and do some touristy things). Overall it was a great experience, and well worth the time/money! This was my first CF Objective, and I must say it was incredibly inspiring! I learned quite a few new things, and am excited about blocking off time to implement them in my current projects. The keynote was very informative. Nice to know that our "dying language" ColdFusion has done nothing but grow steadily over the last few years -- the keynote mentioned somewhere around 800K estimated CF developers now! We also got a nice sneak peak at some of the things coming in CF9, the new Bolt IDE, and Flex 4 (including a name change, that's already been blogged everywhere, so I won't get into that here). Thanks to Troy Pullis for coordinating the Star Trek IMAX outing on Thursday. I'm by no means a die-hard Trekkie, but this movie was so well done, that didn't matter! I highly recommend it, even if you are only peripherally familiar with the Star Trek story lines (or just like well produced sci-fi movies). It was great to meet some of the folks that author blogs I've been reading over the years -- Ben Nadel (who was easily one of the nicest people I've met in ages), Jason Dean (thanks again for carpooling us to/from the Star Trek film, and for dropping me at the Light Rail), Dan Vega, Bob Silverberg and everyone I'm forgetting due to jet lag. :) I took notes on the various presentations which I hope to post later; they need to be cleaned up before they'll be of any use to other people. Hopefully time for that soon, but with all the new things I learned, it'll be hard to prioritize everything! :) Now if you'll excuse me, I want to rewrite all my apps with DSLs, Transfer ORM, ColdSpring, Flex, ValidateThis, Model-Glue, and Peter Bell's IBO library. ;) -Nolan

MAX 2008 overall pros and cons

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:29:00 -0700

Overall, I'm been very happy with my experience at Max 2008. I ran into several familiar faces, met the fine folks from The Morphic Group, heard lots of talks on interesting topics, and got some pretty sweet swag to bring home. :) When I get time later in the week, I will start posting my reviews of the various presentations (and maybe other bits as well if they haven't already been Twittered to death). For now, I'd like to share a few overall pros and cons of the conference as a whole: Pros -- 1. Everything was extremely well organized. From (quite literally) the second I walked in, I had people informing me of where to go, how to register, etc. We were given handy pocket guides with the conference schedule, and a nice book with several blank pages for taking notes. Kiosks were available for attendees to print up-to-the-minute schedules, and so on. I heard a few reports of people not being able to enter different talks because the bar-code scanners weren't working, but I only heard that a couple times on the 1st day (so I'll assume that was the exception, and that it was remedied by the the time Tuesday's presentations started). 2. Plenty of space. Whether I was at the expo floor, or eating lunch, or in a presentation, I didn't feel cramped anywhere. It was always (for me) pretty easy to find a semi-quiet spot to set up my laptop, or just make a few phone calls without worrying about being shoved out of a hallway by masses of folks trying to walk by (as can easily be the case at big shows like this). 3. The party! Wow...that party Tuesday night was great! Adobe bussed everyone to the Academy of Sciences and we basically had free run of the place for the night. Tons of food, great exhibits, and lots of things to keep us geeky people entertained all night. I'm not much of a drinker, and have been to many parties that consist solely of drinking alcohol (boring folks like me pretty quickly). This was not the case here! I stuffed my face on dim sum, enjoyed the planetarium, the aquarium, and generally ran around silly until I was too tired to continue. :) I'm definitely making a return trip to Academy of Sciences when time permits! Cons -- All that being said, I do have a few pieces of "constructive criticism" as well... 1. (This one is half for the "powers that be" behind deciding which presentations get booked, and half for the presenters themselves.) Do. not. use. your. presentation. as. a. sales. pitch. I sat thru WAY too many presentations where 10, 15, or even 20+ minutes were spent talking about what the presenter's company does for a living (often, it had nothing to do with the topic at hand). Please, save that for the expo floor! I paid money and used my time to schedule attending this session so I could learn something. If I want to learn about your product, I'll ask the folks at the booth. A quick slide and a minute of "I'm from company X, we make thingie XYZ for the Photography industry" (or what have you) is fine, but please let's realize there is a time and place for more extensive self-promotion. During a technical lecture is not the place, despite what your VP of Marketing may tell you. :) 2. If the bulk of your presentation pertains to features in not-yet-released software, please SAY SO in the TITLE. As a general rule, I don't build products in pre-release software. For me, that's defined as anything still labeled as "beta", "alpha", "preview" or any other variant of "it's not for sale just yet, and we don't guarantee it works". (If a client asked for something, i will of course break this rule on a case by case basis, but generally I stick with what is "released" as my technology stack.) I lost track of how many presentations I sat thru that ended up being "Flex 4 only", but weren't listed as such in the schedule. Was this a mandate from Adobe? Were folks "forced" to include some percentage of content about the not-yet-released Gumbo (that Gumbo Preview DVD doesn't count as "released"...it can't even be installed in a non-default folder without Bad Things Happening). I spent present-day money and used present-day time to learn present-day improvements to my skillset. When Flex 4 (or whatever the product is in question) is out, then maybe i'll be interested. Until then (or at least until it's very late in the beta testing phase), not so much. Other folks came here via a boss's dime. Said boss may be waiting at the office to ask the age old questions: "so, what did you learn? can you justify the cost of this expo?". I assure you, that most of them don't want to hear "yes, i learned things that ONLY work 8+ months from now, IF all the things in the Preview release stay in the final product, and IF you spend even more money to BUY it". Want to guarantee that small companies won't send anyone to Max 2009? Yeah that'd probably do it. There's no "return on investment" with present-day technology stacks in that situation. I did attend several "what's coming in the next version" talks, which were appreciated. It's good to see what is coming in the next version, but I wanted to balance that with information I can use right now. "Hiding" Gumbo content in talks that are not properly labeled makes it difficult to find that balance. And the reverse is also true: many people may be "bleeding edge junkies", and they didn't attend the talks because "with the upcoming version of Flex" wasn't in the title. That's all for now. I'll post "mini reviews" of the various sessions as time allows in the coming weeks. --nolan

Adobe Max schedule, finally.

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:14:00 -0700

I finally had some time to come up for air and finalize my Adobe MAX schedule today!

Here's where you can find me:

Sunday --

User Group Manager Meet-Up

Monday --

Looking Ahead to the Next Version of Flex
Developing an Enterprise Application with Adobe Flex
Advanced Tips and Tricks for Flex Builder 3
Birds-of-a-Feather Meeting

Tuesday --

Developer Best Practices with Flex
Hack-Proofing Your ColdFusion Powered Sites
Architecting ColdFusion for Scalability and High Availability
Designing Effective CSS and HTML Websites in Fireworks CS4

Wednesday --

Advanced Patterns for ColdFusion Test Automation
Debugging and Profiling with Flex Builder
Event-Driven Programming in ColdFusion
ColdFusion Powered Flex

Hopefully I'll have time to blog my thoughts on the presentations at the end of each day, though some of that depends on how many work issues will need to be addressed while down in the Bay Area.

See you there!
-nolan

To Framework, or Not To Framework? It depends!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:31:00 -0700

I just responded to a post over on Alagad.com about using "homegrown" frameworks vs. using "regular" frameworks, and my comment quickly became a catalyst for a blog post of my own on that same topic. Frameworks are a pretty common holy war these days. The phrases "always use frameworks!", and "which framework is best?" are both seen pretty regularly on blogs, message boards, or overheard at various user group meetings. As a contractor, I don't always get to determine the requirements, or time lines, or technology stack that I have to be responsible for. And as such, I sometimes need to make difficult decisions. [More]

ColdFusion 9 Wish List

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:05:00 -0700

Nothing really "new" here. I've been posting my "CF9 WishList" thoughts on various other blogs, and decided I'd prefer to start compiling my list here on my own blog. The list as it stands currently... [More]

Last night's Bacfug / Flex 3 / AIR preso

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:11:00 -0700

Thanks to Sean and everyone else involved in putting together last night's Bacfug meeting. Here are some notes I jotted down throughout the evening (I'm still looking for a good deal on a MacBook Pro so I can move into this century...anyone?).

Traffic was pure evil. It took two and a half hours to get down there last night! Phew! Fortunately I left early enough, and still managed to get to the meeting on time (though only barely).
Flex 3 pricing will be lower! Yay! $249 for standard and $699 for Professional. Upgrades are $99 and $299 respectively...which puts them well within reasonable. (It's interesting that Flex 3 went down in price, while CF8 went up. Hmmm.)
Why wasn't the parking garage open? It's pouring rain, there is a huge meeting, but the gate is down? It's usually up when I attend regular Bacfug meetings? (Fortunately I caught the parking attendant before she left and was able to get spot, rather than deal with street parking in the rain...but even the attendant didn't know anything about the meeting. They're usually up to date.)
Free food and drinks! Yay! This makes up for having to pay for parking. heh. :)
Better Mic/EQ for the speakers please. During the intro portion when folks were all taking turns making announcements, it was really hard to hear. A good chunk of this is probably because folks either a) don't know how to use a microphone or b) are self-conscious about hearing their own voice through the speakers (both of which are very common). May I suggest a mic with an extremely wide pickup pattern, and purchasing a limiter so the volume can be maxed out, while still maintaining even audio output? Just an idea.
Luke from...oh his company name is escaping me...mentioned his Sprouts project. Sounds like a neat idea, definitely worth checking out.
Flex 3 has some really sweet new features! As a general rule, I don't normally install beta software, so this was my first look at some of the upcoming goodies. Introductory Data Wizards and the Memory/Performance Profiling look especially swank!
Source code refactoring too! The ability to find all the references to a class/variable/function and rename them automagically. Also the ability to know how many instances of class Foo are currently in use. Sweet!
Got lots of useful info about AIR. I had initially thought it was closer to .NET and thus, didn't see it fitting into my upcoming projects. After last night's presentation, I think I have a better understanding of it...though I wouldn't mind another more technical "under the hood" discussion at some point. AIR somehow creates "native OS apps" when you run it (on Windows you can actually do "add/remove programs" and see them...unlike a "typical" Flash/Flex app. hmmm.). I'm still a bit fuzzy on how all of that works. Maybe I'll look into it more later on.
Also discovered SQLite (which is used in/with AIR somehow to provide off-line database support). Yet another new geeky thing to check out! :)

I was contemplating making the drive down for tonight's Silvafug meeting (I can't make my local NorCalFlex meeting this week...last minute band practice), but with the weather being so terrible, I fear the drive would be insane. Thanks again guys!

Got use for cfmxml?

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:33:00 -0700

I've been trading emails with Sean Corfield on the Bacfug list today regarding CF8's ability to auto-generate Flex code. We're trying to come up with a real-world use case for when you would actually want to auto-generate Flex code from the server. Given the apparent fact that every time the data changes, a new SWF gets generated, we're at a loss. (Every time your data/content was updated, it would just create yet another used-only-once SWF file, and would keep doing so, until the hard drive fills up.) Is anyone out there actually using this feature in the real world? Have you done any more than a "hello world" app in CF8, in which you were auto-generating Flex code as part of the output? Right now, I'm thinking it's a neat parlor trick, but not much else. I would love to be proven wrong. thanks. nolan

FlexCamp in review

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:21:00 -0700

Last night was FlexCamp at the Adobe/Macromedia building. Due to an incredibly long freeway backup (gridlocked from West Sac all the way into Vacaville!) I missed the Flex 101 session, getting to the Adobe building just in time to register and get a good seat for the remainder of the night. Highlights for me included: * Free stuff! Almost immediately after walking into the building I'm presented with a copy of the O'Reilly book "Flex 2 Programming", and a full copy of Flex Builder 2! Perfect timing, as my 30 day trial will have expired before the weekend is over. :) * All of the intro/keynote speeches and presentations were very informative and inspiring. I was tempted to leave early and go start prototyping some Flex projects! * You can do some pretty slick stuff w/ Flex. We saw demos from MixBook.com and SlideRocket, both of which had impressive features. The Adobe guys also showed off bits of internal projects, and a partner-project with MTV. * The Flex support in CS3 is pretty slick too. It makes me wish I had more of a need for Fireworks on a day to day basis. * AIR looks to be coming along nicely! .NET has got a serious run for it's money in the integrated-runtime market! * Adobe's building is sweet, and from what I can tell, the culture is pretty great there too. There aren't many huge companies that I can see myself working for, but should life ever bring me to living in San Francisco (God forbid *g*), I would definitely hand in a resume there. Some not-so-great points from the evening: * Power outlets were at a premium. With the event being described as "very hands on, bring your laptops!", many of us were concerned we wouldn't be able to participate. Fortunately, some power strips appeared as the night moved on, and use of laptops didn't seem as necessary as I had initially expected. * While the first half of the night was well organized and helpful, I felt the second half of "camp sessions" could have been better. We were told to "use the wiki or a Twitter account to communicate and figure out what the sessions will be". Well, I'm not an avid Wiki guy, nor am I on Twitter (I've yet to see the point of making an account), so it was disconcerting to know that the topics and sessions were being sorted out in this way...especially after all the "show of hands" and "stand up if you do XYZ" interaction that was being done...just do one more "raise your hand if you want a session on ColdFusion and Flex integration". Simple enough, no? Which brings me to... * No session on ColdFusion integreation with Flex! In fact, aside from the one other attendee I overheard talking about it, there was no information on Flex and CF at all! How is that possible? We're at the Macromedia/Adobe building, there is talk of PHP, Ruby, AMF, and even a session in the back on ASP.NET has now formed...yet no ColdFusion integration info? I've never believed the rumous that "ColdFusion is dying", but now I'm starting to wonder. All in all, worth the experience. I'm mostly bummed I missed the Flex 101 session. But I'll happily take the free Flex Builder 2 and OReilly book to do some work myself.