Darron Schall

Years of Flash experience: 5

How did you get started in Flash?

I got started in Flash by accident. During my tenure at Lehigh University, I was granted an internship at Binney & Smith, the makers of the Crayola brand. The purpose of the internship was to build Internet applications using ColdFusion. Flash wasn't anywhere in the picture.

As it happens, the team I was assigned to was a hybrid team of designers, illustrators, and developers. The designers had just come out of Flash training in New York City and were eager to use what they learned in their projects. Because I was an HTML guy at the time and knew JavaScript fairly well, I fielded questions from designers about how to accomplish certain things in Flash using ActionScript. I had no idea what a movie clip was or how the Timeline worked, but ActionScript was close enough to JavaScript that I was able to answer their questions pretty well.

Eventually, as I started to answer more questions and became more invested in the projects, I transitioned into an ActionScript developer role. Projects would be split between the designers and myself, with the ActionScript burden falling on my lap and the design falling on theirs.

I learned the ins and outs of Flash by attaching myself to the designers on the team. They taught me movie clips, the Timeline, sound, and so on. I knew JavaScript fairly well so ActionScript was easy to pick up. Using it in the trenches every day helped to hone my skill set. When I got stuck, I turned to mailing lists and forums for support.

My college courses helped me from a general programming, logic, and theory standpoint, but I'm mainly self-taught and have tried to follow the paths of those who came before me.

How have you used Flash in the past and how do you use it today?

Much of my early Flash work was dedicated to creating online content for children. Because we were part of the Crayola brand, we did a lot of work creating engaging online experiences for kids that could be taken offline using some sort of "print and color" functionality. Typically the work manifested itself as online games. At the end of the game you could print out a coloring sheet that showed your high score and name on it, and then hang it on the fridge for mom and dad to see.

As my skills improved, the complexity of the games grew as well. I remember creating a "jump and run" platform game engine that we reused to create eight different games for a pretty big online promotion. During the testing, one of the responses I remember hearing was, "This is just like PlayStation!" By today's standards, this wasn't anything exciting, but at the time it was pretty innovative stuff and we were proud to be pushing Flash like that.

Eventually, I moved out of the games world and started to get into forms-based application building. As application development with Flash was progressing, so was I as a software architect. I remember the RIA growing pains of Flash 7, the v2 component problems, and the introduction of Flex. At first I was turned off by Flex because it didn't sit well with me and my Flash roots. Eventually I came around, and now I'm spending my days building mostly forms-based applications in Flex 2.

What does Flash mean to you personally?

Personally, Flash has made programming more interesting to me and has given me a fun and rewarding hobby. Additionally, Flash has helped me meet many great people along the way. A lot of the friends I have today are people I've met at various Flash-related events, or people I've met through online Flash communities. The Flash community is jam-packed with amazing people, and I'm happy and proud to be a part of it.

What does Flash mean to you professionally?

My entire professional career exists because of Flash. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. Flash has really helped me evolve as a programmer, and I feel that I came into Flash and ActionScript at the perfect time. I was still in college on my computer science track when Flash 5 was released and ActionScript was officially born.

As ActionScript has grown and matured, so too have my own skills. I'm building applications today that I never would've dreamed about just five years ago. That's a testament to how far Flash has come and how it has brought me along for the ride.

What has Flash taught you about software development and the web?

Flash taught me how to play nice on teams—working with illustrators and visual designers to animators and sound technicians or other programmers all on the same project. Good communication and process are essential ingredients for success.

Which feature(s) of Flash amazed you the most, and why?

Flash video is an amazing feature. I'm blown away that they were able to achieve the quality and functionality they did while still keeping the Flash Player download size small. Flash video has revolutionized video on the Internet, reaching a wider audience than any other video format. It seamlessly integrates the video experience with the surrounding page and creates a killer user experience overall, blowing away the competition.

How has Flash enhanced your creativity?

With Flash, anything is possible. I remember falling in love with Flash because it was so easy to take an idea or concept and turn it into something concrete. I've always been somewhat artistically challenged (programming is my art) and Flash removed the barriers I ran into with other programming environments. It enabled me to explore math and algorithms visually with ease. That exploration and discovery has fueled my right brain, making sure my left brain didn't grow disproportionately.

What's your favorite Flash tip or lesson?

When in doubt, wait a frame. If waiting a frame doesn't work, try waiting two frames. Seriously, the key to building things in Flash—especially when using any sort of user interface components—is to just wait a frame if something doesn't work quite right.

If you're trying to interact with an object and it's not having an effect, chances are you haven't given the object enough time to initialize. Look at UIObject.doLater() in Flash 8 or UIComponent.callLater() in Flex 2.

What cautionary tale can you relate to other developers?

Don't be afraid to ask questions when you get stuck or admit that you don't know how to do something. We all have varying levels of pride, but you'll find that the people in and around Flash are some of the most helpful out there and will do their best to get you out of a quandary.

Don't beat your head against your desk trying to figure something out for days and waste precious time when asking for help could lead you to a solution much more effectively.

Where will Flash be 10 years?

The amount of change that Flash has gone through over the past 10 years leads me to believe that the sky is the limit over the next 10. The fact that we have rich, collaborative, multiuser applications like Breeze today—when Flash at its roots was just a vector graphic tool—is pretty incredible. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the next 10 years we can say the same thing.

I see Flash continuing to expand into device markets and being on literally every device that requires a user interface. I see native desktop applications being replaced by web-enabled versions that work as well on your desktop as they do on your mobile phone.

I see Flash displays hanging in art galleries, depicting the latest creative explorations, right alongside oil painting and sculptures.

Most important of all, I see Flash on 64-bit Linux. Maybe by then, it'll even be 128-bit Linux.

Page 4 of 10

Previous Page

Next Page