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Table of Contents

  1. Andreas Heim (USA)
  2. Aral Balkan (UK)
  3. Colin Moock (Canada)
  4. Darron Schall (USA)
  5. Grant Skinner (Canada)
  6. Lisa Larson (USA)
  7. Mariam Dholkawala (India)
  8. Sascha Wolter (Germany)
  9. Shin Matsumura (Japan)
  10. Stefan Richter (UK)

Flash: Ten years, ten perspectives

Shin Matsumura

Years of Flash experience: 7

Shin Matsumura

Shin Matsumura is a Certified Flash Developer and manager of the Flash OOP User Group in Japan. He has worked in Canada and Tokyo as a Flash developer for the past seven years. He wrote a popular Flash textbook in Japan, Standard Web Design Course for Flash 8 (Shoeisha, 2006), and is currently teaching Flash in Tokyo and at Kyoto Seika University in Kyoto. He is developing his own school, cshool, to open in Tokyo in 2006. Shin studied Chinese in Tianjian, China, and would one day like to work in China.


How did you get started in Flash?

I first learned about Flash in Vancouver, Canada, in 1999 when a friend showed me the website of the famous Flash developer, Yugo Nakamura. I became inspired to learn Flash and enrolled in an advanced Internet development course at Bodwell Internet School. After finishing that course, I got a job doing Flash development in Vancouver. I worked there for two and a half years developing company websites in Flash 5 and making Flash games.

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

In Canada I made Flash games and websites using Flash 5. After coming back to Japan, I worked at Bascule making Flash-based promotional websites for cars, mobile phones, movies, and ramen noodles. Now I write books about Flash, develop and teach Flash courses, and develop Flash websites. I recently developed the Japanese website for the film Silent Hill with my friend Minoru Tanaka. I'm currently working on creating blog components in Flash that people can add to their own blogs.

What does Flash mean to you personally?

Flash helped me redirect my life onto a new career path. Before going to Canada and learning about Flash, I worked as a salaryman at a Japanese import/export company, swimming in paperwork every day. I am very happy to have found Flash. It has allowed me to express my ideas and creativity in my work and personal life.

What does Flash mean to you professionally?

I started out as a web developer with Flash skills. As Flash evolved from an animation tool to multimedia software with the introduction of ActionScript and XML support, I learned to bring my skills up to the next level and become a professional Flash game and application developer.

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

The web changes very fast. To succeed, you have to show examples of what you can do faster than other people. In other industries, there is secrecy around your techniques. The web is an open forum. We developers have to be open about our ideas and get them out there quickly.

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

ActionScript is amazing. When I first started learning Flash, it was just an animation tool. After Flash got ActionScript and the ability to connect to a database, it enabled me to make static content more active and interactive. The database connectivity functionality in Flash opened a new world of possibilities for me.

How has Flash enhanced your creativity?

Flash has helped me develop my ideas quickly and easily. I bring my various types of audio and visual content into Flash and build something quickly that mirrors my ideas. This has made me more productive and has helped me develop my skills and style.

What's your favorite Flash tip or lesson?

Try using the Flash Media Server! In the past I used Flash Communication Server for an avatar-based chat application. This project helped me break the concept of dry, text-only communication. I like to work on projects that lead to more interaction among people.

What cautionary tale can you relate to other developers?

Flash Media Server is great for making interactive content, but you must be careful when choosing a server. One time I built a multiuser action game for which it was crucial that the server could rapidly provide real-time information, such as firing weapons and character responses to other players' actions. My mistake was that I used a cheap server because of my low budget. In the end, the server did not perform well enough and the real-time effect of the game was lost.

Where will Flash be 10 years?

Here in Japan, more and more people are connecting to the Internet using mobile phones. I forecast that in the near future mobile gadgets will become the main access point to the Internet rather than personal computers. When that happens, Flash will become an important tool for making mobile device interfaces more interactive and easier to navigate.

Thanks to John Koch for translating this from the original Japanese.

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