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Announcing the Flex 3 Cookbook Cook-Off

This summer, O'Reilly Media announces the creation of the Flex 3 Cookbook Cook-Off to celebrate the recent publication of Flex 3 Cookbook: Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers, written by Josh Noble, Todd Anderson, and a selection of authors whose recipes were plucked from the Adobe Flex Cookbook website. During this contest, we invite you to submit your best code recipes for the chance to win some great prizes. Read on for more details.

• Who: RIA developers
• What: Publish your Flex code recipe solution
• When: Entries accepted between June 2 & August 1, 2008
• Where: Adobe Flex Cookbook website at www.adobe.com/go/flex_cookbook
  (Note: Make sure to select the O'Reilly opt-in option at the bottom of your recipe submission.)
• Why: Help other Flex developers in the community develop better RIAs, faster. And, there is the possibility of winning some incredible prizes.

Four winners will be chosen during the contest period. The prizes include:

• Grand prize: A ticket to Adobe MAX* (November 16-19 in San Francisco, California) and $500 (US) in O'Reilly Media books
• Community choice award: $350 (US) in O'Reilly Media books (this is the top-rated recipe during contest time period)
• Second prize: Every Adobe Developer Library (ADL) book published by O'Reilly Media
• Third prize: Five O'Reilly Media books of choice

* MAX ticket includes entry to the conference, and does not include airfare.

The judges include:

• Jack Herrington
  Jack Herrington is an engineer, author and presenter who lives and works in the Bay Area. His mission is to expose his fellow engineers to new technologies. That covers a broad spectrum, from demonstrating programs that write other programs in the book Code Generation in Action to providing techniques for building customer centered websites in PHP Hacks, and all the way writing a how-to on audio blogging called Podcasting Hacks. The books are available online and at your local bookstore. Jack also writes articles for O’Reilly, DevX, and IBM Developerworks.
  
  Jack lives with his wife, daughter, and two adopted dogs. When he is not writing software, books or articles you can find him on his bike, running, or in the pool training for triathlons. You can keep up with Jack's work and his writing at http://jackherrington.com.
  
• Josh Noble
  Joshua Noble is a development consultant with three years of experience in building enterprise level applications using Flex integrated with Java, Ruby, ColdFusion, and Microsoft .NET. Joshua was one of the lead authors for Flex 3 Cookbook: Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers, now available on Amazon.com
  
• Rich Tretola
  Rich Tretola currently holds the position of Rich Applications Technical Lead. He is an award-winning Flex developer and was the lead author of Professional Flex 2 and sole author of Beginning AIR. Rich has been building Internet applications for over 10 years and has worked with Flex since the original Royale beta version of Flex in 2003. Other than Flex, Rich builds applications using ColdFusion, Flash, and Java. Rich is highly regarded within the Flex community as an expert in RIA and is also an Adobe Community Expert. He runs a popular Flex and AIR blog at http://blog.everythingFlex.com, and was also a speaker at the Adobe MAX 2007 conference in Chicago
  
• Joey Lott
  Joey Lott is the author or co-author of Flash 8 Cookbook, Programming Flash Communication Server, and ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook (all O'Reilly Media). Working in the Internet industry since 1996, Joey co-founded RightSpring, Inc., and consulted for YourMobile/Premium Wireless Services and Ads.com, before joining Schematic. He has taught Flash and ActionScript since 1999.
• Ethan Eismann
  Ethan Eismann is the Senior Experience Design Lead of Adobe Thermo, within the Adobe XD team. With Thermo, he is crafting a product vision that will make it easy for designers to prototype rich interactive experiences that can be taken to code. Ethan also works with product teams across Adobe to improve workflows between the Adobe Creative Suite design tools, and its development tools. In the past, Ethan worked closely with the Adobe AIR team to develop best design practices for the emerging Adobe AIR platform, and he designed experiences for mobile devices, RIAs, and desktop applications such as Adobe Acrobat and Fireworks. In his spare time, Ethan surfs off the coast of San Francisco and renovates his home and its garden.

After August 1, the judges will determine the winners using the following criteria:

• User Experience (30%): Does the recipe work well and produce a great-looking RIA? Does it make best use of the available controls?
• Implementation (30%): Is the code well designed and understandable? Is it elegant?
• Creativity (20%): Was the solution to the problem particularly creative without being obscure?
• Relevance (15%): Does this example solve a problem that real engineers have in the real world?
• "Flexiness" (5%): Was the solution implemented using Flex best practices?

Winners will be announced the first week of September, 2008. Read more about the terms and conditions for this contest. This contest is only for contributors who live in the United States.

So, developers, start marinating, thinking, and posting your recipes to the Flex Cookbook site for a chance to win some great prizes and help your fellow Flex developers!

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