It’s not too late to make a kick ass video, like those below. Mad props to Yakov, Dan, Ben and Jeff!!
It’s not too late to register for 360|Flex!!! Register now!
360Flex – Why choose the Flex platform?
February 18, 2010 By
It occurred to me that while we tend to hype the show, there’s always an understood sentiment: Flex is the way to go. However, it dawned on me that some companies and/or developers are just now jumping on the Rich Internet Application bandwagon. They may think that Flex is an option, but they’re not going to commit to 360|Flex until they know for sure. Therefore, I’d like to point out a few reasons why we chose to do 360|Flex vs 360|AJAX or something like that.
1) Flex is fun: First and foremost, Flex is fun. If you ever tried to build a RIA in the Flash Authoring IDE, you know it was an exercise in futility. Sure, sure, it could be done, much like surgery can be done with a machete, but it was far too painful for the masses. Flex, especially with Flex/Flash Builder, makes the experience so much better.
2) Flex saves time: The framework does so much for you, right out of the proverbial box. One of my favorite things when teaching Flex to new people is to start a new project and add this single line of code:
<mx:Button label=”Main Button”/>
Then I run the application and show them how it’s a fully functional program. I show them how there is already built in a hover state, down state and normal state. All of this built-in to Flex, with no extra effort on your part.
3) Flex is easy: By this, I don’t mean you’ll be a Flex Superstar within a week. Instead, what I mean is that Flex is a language that’s easy to come to from other scripting or programming languages. For instance, that line above looks like HTML, because MXML is a markup language too. ActionScript, the scripting language of Flex, is based on ECMAScript, which makes it instantly familiar to JavaScripters. Flex is also Object-Oriented base, lending to itself design patterns that are familiar to others from the Java and other programming languages.
4) Flex doesn’t limit you: Most programming languages don’t limit you per se, but some make it tough to go beyond what the language and/or framework was meant to do. This is not the case with Flex. I’ve seen some pretty amazing edge cases that push the envelope of what the Flex framework was meant to do. That’s the great thing about Flex. It was made to be used right out of the box, which is good for some apps. However, the framework is also one big lesson on how to do anything your heart (or realistically, your Product Manager’s heart) can desire.
These are just a few reasons we became Flex developers back in the day. It was also one of the reasons we created this conference. We realized the potential that Flex had, and imagined the great things that would come of bringing everyone in the Flex community together. The outcome of the shows have been greater than anything we could’ve imagined. Frameworks, books, companies, businesses, friendships, etc. have all been born at 360|Flex. It’s a testament to the power of a unique community around an amazing product.
While 360|Flex does have some of the most advanced sessions on Flex, we haven’t forgotten about the newcomers. We always have a (free to paid attendees) Flex 101 session on Sunday before the show. This is a full day of beginning training for those new to Flex or those needing a refresher before the conference. You bring your own laptop and we have amazing instructors like Garth Braithwaite that teach you the basics of Flex.
If this all sounds great, then definitely come out and join us. Register here for what’s sure to be a great time in San Jose. Because if the framework is fun, you can imagine how much more fun the community is!
360Flex Speaker Chat – Jeffry Houser
February 17, 2010 By
Join us this Thursday at 12pm MST for another great Speaker chat with Jeffry Houser.
Jeff owns his own consulting company and has recently starts Flextras, building commercial quality custom components. The Flash platform and Flex community need more people selling awesome high quality stuff. Jeff, Simplified Logic, Grant, they need company.
Chat with Jeff about running his own business, competing with freebies and more!
If you’ve missed the last few speaker chats, feel free to check them out!
If you haven’t registered for 360|Flex yet, time is running out! hurry up and register, don’t miss out on the best conference this spring! Register now!
360Flex – Flex vs HTML5: Flex work pays today
February 16, 2010 By
With all the hub-bub about the future of Flash and HTML5 flying around the intertubes, we wanted to point out one obvious fact. While HTML5 or Flash may one day be the end all solution to all the world’s woes, there’s only one woe we at 360|Flex are concerned about: Getting people paid.
Because of the rebranding of Flash and the associated technologies, the term Flex is now a bit watered down. However, we still wanted to use it to point out something that should be obvious to all, but may be lost in the debate. Flex work pays now, as in today, and will for the foreseeable future. A lot of enterprises have invested heavily in Flex. They’re not going to give up that investment anytime soon, particularly since the Flash Player on the desktop isn’t going anywhere.
To prove this, I did a quick little search on the monster.com website. This is not a debate about this particular job site’s ability or merit. Monster is big enough to represent the world at large, i.e. outside the Silicon Valley bubble where this Flash vs HTML5 debate is going down most vigorously. Therefore, it’s good enough for my non-scientific experiments.
First off, I did a search for HTML5 jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at the results:
The results of my nationwide HTML5 job search
Next, I did a search for Flex jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at this results there:
The results for the nationwide Flex job search
Now, some people will argue, what if you did a search for “HTML 5″ vs “HTML5″. That brings the number up to 1700, but a quick glance shows that the majority are NOT HTML5 jobs. Rather, they’re HTML jobs with the number 5 somewhere in the job listing. Also, “Flex hours” must also boost up the “Flex” search, right? I found 1 “flex hour” posting in the first 100 jobs, so I don’t think the argument is valid
Now, what happens to the numbers if you search for “Flash” or “ActionScript”? I don’t know, because I didn’t . Why not? Well, because Flex’s 1300 is close enough to the results of “HTML 5″ and blows way past the results for “HTML5″ to illustrate the main point:
Today, you can get hired by roughly 1300 companies to do Flex work or you can get hired by 18 companies to do HTML5 work.
If there’s one thing we’re very aware of at 360|Flex, it’s getting paid to do work. We think getting paid is good. We also started the conference to help you better your pay (if your working with Flex) or to help you find a new job (if you’re not working with Flex). Therefore, we just wanted to point out that attending 360|Flex for the foreseeable future is a worthwhile investment. Register now and participate in the greatest gathering of Flex developers anywhere.
360Flex – In pictures
February 10, 2010 By
I posted about what you do and don’t get, and we’ve done more posts than I can count on the overall vibe, and the parties etc. So I wanted to take a minute to just post some pictures. I grabbed these off of flickr.
That’s just a few. Some 1200 pics are on flickr right now for 360|Flex. We’ll get that number higher :)
Hopefully that shows you a little bit of what we’re talking about when we talk about the people, the parties, and everything else that makes people say “Here’s what I love about the 360Flex conferences: even if you didn’t attend a single session it’s worth the time and money to attend. The conversations with other developers in the hallways, at lunch/dinner, at the bars in the evenings is just as educational and of course more fun” Dan Florio
Imagine if you attended some sessions ;)