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by Jonathan Gay
Macromedia Flash began with a few bits of colored plastic.
As a child, I grew up playing with LEGOs when there were
no LEGO men or whales or complicated accessory packs-just
rectangular blocks and a few wheels. Those bits of colored
plastic taught me the basics of engineering design, how to
choose a design problem, and the process of iterative refinement.
Even better, they helped me express my early passion for building
things.
LEGO-based Design Process
My favorite project was building LEGO ships with lots of ramps
that could hold my toy cars. This taught me that it's best
to choose a problem that inspires you and challenges you-and
one that you can accomplish with your limited capabilities
and resources.
The human mind is much too limited to capture the entirety
of a complex creation all at once. With LEGO, you can start
with the vision and work out the details of the design as
you progress. With patience and persistence, I developed the
following LEGO-based design process. It's more or less the
same process we ultimately used to develop Flash.
- Choose a problem: Build a LEGO ship.
- Develop a vision: What sort of ship will it be?
How big will it be? What will it carry?
- Build: Build the framework of the ship.
- Fill in the details: Design and build the details
of the ship, ramps, doors, etc.
- Test: Drive the cars around the ship and sail the
ship while exploring the house.
- Refine: Take parts of the ship apart and make them
better.
- Learn: Take what you learned from building this
ship and use it to build a better one next time.
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