The slides and sample apps for the Flex and Silverlight stack comparison talk that I gave at 360 Flex with Eric Fickes are now available. You can find them here: http://www.iheartair.com/?page_id=604
David and I have been teaching Flex at a local college. Recently David mentioned to a student that he should use a lighter-weight class for a mask than Canvas. The student asked why. This brings up a good point.
When you’re using various Flex framework classes, you need to stop and think. Do I really need the class I’m using or can I get away with something smaller. One good example is when you’re creating custom MXML components. Many times a rookie developer will create an MXML component with a Container as the root component when all they really need to do is to make a UI Control the root component.
In the case of the question, when using a mask, a very lightweight class the Sprite could have been used if the student had not needed the mask to participate in the display list. Otherwise, they could have used a custom class based on UIComponent, vs using the larger Canvas class.
Just to re-enforce David’s point, I created a little POC where I created three custom classes, one based on Canvas, one based on UIComponent, and one based on Sprite. I did not create any custom code in these classes, they were simply used so that they’d be easier to call out in the Flex Builder Profiler. Then I profiled the application and here’s a screenshot of the results.
As you can see, there can be significant memory impact when you use classes that are more robust than you need.
That being said, pay attention to the classes you use in your code, and always stop to think, do I really need to use this class, or can I get away with something that is lighter-weight?
Here’s two very good reasons to attend 360|Flex in San Jose:
Reason 1:
David Hassoun and I will be co-presenting all that is cool in the world of Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Stratus, and RTMFP. It’s going to be a great presentation on some of the cutting edge Adobe technology. So register for 360 and come to our presentation:
Adobe Stratus and Flash Player 10 P2P: Enterprise Multi-user Applications Without the Need for Large Server Infrastructure
Reason 2:
I’m excited to announce that I’m FINALLY going to do my Silverlight for Flex developers talk. The scope of my original idea has changed and now it’s now evolved into a product compare/contrast, developer workflow, media delivery, and back end system talk. The cool thing is I’m bundling it up with my friend, and band mate Eric Fickes who will focus on the server side of things. So register for 360 and come to see the RIATron:
Session 1: Adobe is from Mars, Microsoft is from Uranus: A View from the Client
Session 2: Adobe is from Mars, Microsoft is from Uranus: A View from the Server
Here’s a screen cast I did recently on the basics of Flash Catalyst. It illustrates a work flow from Photoshop to Flash Catalyst and then on to Flash Builder 4. Enjoy.
Tutorial: Intro to Flash Catalyst from Jun Heider on Vimeo.
Thanks to all who stayed till the last session of the last day of MAX 2009 to watch my talk “Tackling Memory and Performance in Flash, Flex, and Adobe AIR“. I hope it was worth your while!
Thanks to Jonathan Campos for working together with me on prepping the session on short notice during MAX and talking at the Tuesday session, it was an honor, and pretty fun too.
Here are some links to the assets:
2. FXPs of the demos I used during the talk
Also, for those that couldn’t make it, here’s a screen cast of the presentation which is embedded below.
So here’s some screen casts I’ve recently recorded for some students of mine. For those of you just getting started with Flex they might come in handy. Oh and if you do watch all four it’ll be about two hours of content. Enjoy!
Tutorial: Object Oriented Programming (OOP) in Flex from Jun Heider on Vimeo.
Tutorial: Data Types in Flex from Jun Heider on Vimeo.
Tutorial: Events in Flex from Jun Heider on Vimeo.
Tutorial: ActionScript 3 Design Patterns from Jun Heider on Vimeo.
I found out last week that I had to upgrade my Flex 2 certification to Flex 3, and quickly…my ACI certification was on the line. Of course this happens when I’m completely swamped and have too many other things to do. In other words, I needed to pass the exam and do it with very little study time, in other words, after finding out last week, I took the test this afternoon and passed.
So what helped me with getting an 88% on minimal study?
1. I’m an experienced Flex/AIR developer. Flex/AIR is what I do every day at work and that’s what I’ve been doing since Flex 2 beta. That being said, if you’re just getting started, “results may vary” if you know what I mean.
2. I downloaded the Adobe Flex 3 with AIR Exam Preparation Guide from the Adobe site. It can be found here. Basically, I scrolled to the bottom and took the 9 question practice exam to get a feel for what the questions would be like.
3. Over the course of a week I ran each of the three 50 question, and five 25 question practice exams in the Attest simulator once. Immense kudos to the Attest team. It’s a great product with a great comprehensive feel, and a very awesome price tag…free!
4. I spent an hour before the test skimming through the Adobe Flex 3 LiveDocs. An hour goes quick, but the questions I got wrong on the Attest gave me a good idea on what I needed to concentrate on.
5. I got good sleep the night before, visualized myself passing the test, and spend 15 minutes or so before the test thinking of other things and concentrating on slowing my breathing and pulse rate. (I was pretty nervous, I always am)
6. During the test I took my time, read all the answers before jumping to conclusions, and unless I was 100% sure, ruled out all the FAIL ones before deciding which one was the correct.
7. Most importantly, I told myself what I would do for myself if I passed. In my case today, I took myself out for one of my most favorite and unhealthy burgers in the world, the Big Daddy at Good Times.
Needless to say, success tasted good this afternoon.
Overall, I thought the exam was somewhat challenging in areas and easy in others. If one really understands the concepts covered during the exam, I think that the resulting certification is at least a good way for someone to get their foot in the door to an interview for a Flex job.
For those wanting to take the exam soon, I can’t disclose any specific details about it. However, I can say, if you’ve built at least a couple Flex and AIR applications and if you take all the practice tests provided in the Attest simulator and pay attention to what you miss, you’ll have a pretty good idea on what you need to study in more detail.
Now I can relax again until the Flex 4 exam comes out…ugh. 
I’d like to thank everyone that attended my Intro to Flex Debugging and Profiling here at CFUnited this morning. I’m sure the slides will be made available elsewhere later, but here they are for download now.
http://www.iheartair.com/samples/cfunited/267_Jun_Heider_IntroToFlexDebuggingAndProfiling.pdf
Tonight The Compilers will be opening for Kevin Hoyt at the Next Generation Flex and ColdFusion tour. This will be the first show of a band that’s been together since April Fool’s day this 2009. We’re the house band ya’ll and we’re mighty excited to be opening for one of the pimpest Technical Evangelists out there.
That being said, we’re please to announce that not only will we be rockin’ the house but we’ll also be dabbling with all kinds of tech goodness during our set. We’re planning to have an interactive part within the set and if you want to take part, this is what you’ll need:
1. Bring your mobile internet and/or texting device (iPhone, gPhone, Razr, whatever)
2. Follow our band @thecompilers on Twitter
3. Also, we have some other shows we’re finalizing, so if you want to keep updated, feel free to friend us on MySpace or fan us on Facebook.
Text’rs and Twitter’ers come on down! We’re playing from 6:30pm to 7pm so be there on time to help us “Pump up the Nerdum!”
I’m really excited to annouce that I’ll be speaking at the first InsideRIA conference!
Spun off of the InsideRIA O’Reilly blog, and mixed in with a little Wilker and Ortega mojo, this is going to be an outstanding conference that knows no bounds when it comes to RIA platforms. Whether it’s Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX, AJAX, you name it, it’s all fair game when it comes to InsideRIA topics.
So what am I going to be speaking about? Here’s what I submitted to call for papers:
Title: Silverlight – First Impressions – Through the Eyes of a Flex Developer
Level: Level 200 (Flex) | Level 100 (Silverlight)
Track: Development
Description:
Are you a Flex developer with an inkling to see what the dark side is like? During this session the porting of an application from Flex to Silverlight will be discussed through the eyes of a seasoned Flex developer with no prior Silverlight experience. The main focus of this session will be to show you how a Flex developer got started with Silverlight and things and thoughts encountered during the process.
So get registered and see you in August…San Jose here we come!
