360Flex – The Speakers – Huyen Tue Dao

Posted on | January 22, 2010 | 12271 Commenthttp://www.360flex.com/blog/2010/01/360flex-the-speakers-huyen-tue-dao/360Flex+-+The+Speakers+-+Huyen+Tue+Dao2010-01-22+15%3A02%3A58John

We get so few female speakers at 360|Flex, we’re always eager to talk to those that do want join us for the best Flex/ActionScript/AIR conference around.

I was at Office Depot picking up some supplies for 360|Flex when I ran into Huyen Tue Dao (she explained it’s pronounced kind of like “Hwin” and my middle name more like “Tweh.” I feel bad when someone feels like they have to do that avoiding-saying-your-name-because-they-don’t-want-to-offend-you thing. But I’m totally cool either way.)

(We stop to chat in the portable hard drive aisle)

Me: so are you excited? this is your first 360|Flex right?

Huyen: This one is going to be my first actually. I didn’t get a chance to go before so I thought I’d sneak in by going through the “Speaker” door.

(I pick up some sort of external hard drive leather holster. who buys this?)

Me: What do you think people who attend your session will be most surprised by/about?

Huyen: I think that people will be surprised about how even the simplest code can lead applications to beachball/freeze sometimes. Also I think people will be happy to see how little the solutions to the problems can cost in terms of runtime and effort. I know I was.

Me: Nice use of the ‘beachball’ (I sit down the stupid leather holster, and pick up a 128mb flash drive. Really?)

What session are you most excited about, besides your own of course :)

Huyen: (She picks up a 1tb portable, damn they’re getting small) I’ll have to say Jeff Tapper. I think that he has a straightforward and humorous way of getting his point across, and his topics always seem to be ones that are need-to-see’s on top of being cool-to-see’s. They’re always things that you can apply as a developer right when you get back to the keyboard.

Huyen: What’re you looking for anyway?

Me: I need a new hard drive to store my ‘Smurfs’ and ‘Punky Brewster’ episodes on. My current one is getting a bit crowded with the full series of ‘Eight is Enough’

What are you most looking forward to at 360|Flex San Jose?

(after looking at me like I had opened a third eye or something.)

Huyen: I’m really looking forward to getting to meet and get to know more Flash/Flex/AIR developers. I only just started really getting out into the community over a year ago, and I’m already crazy about all the talented and intelligent and geeky folks we have in it. It’s really cool to come up to someone in person and tell them that their blog post saved my butt or that I’ve been following them for a long time (on Twitter, not in a crazy psychotic way).

(I laugh. Yeah that’s a fine line, but developers understand it better than most I think)

(We walk over to the pen aisle. An aisle of nothing but pens. Not pencils, highlighters and pens. Just pens. If I were some sort of pen using assassin, I’d be in hog heaven.)

Me: What would you tell someone that was on the fence about attending 360|Flex, to convince them to come?

Huyen: (Picking up a Pen described as the “last pen you’ll ever buy”) I would tell them that if they go to 360|Flex they’ll get the opportunity to tap into a really cool network of people, that they will know the harmony of the hive mind that is the Flex community, and that their uniqueness will be added to our own. And that resistance is futile. Okay, maybe that’s a little too aggressive.

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