David Ortinau is.. well a great guy! He’s smart as hell and doing 2 sessions at 360|Flex DC

The First session, Tuesday at 10:50a ‘The Invaluable Freelance Flasher’ will cover what you need to know as a freelance developer.  The second session, Wednesday at 1:30p ‘How to Scale Your Freelance Biz and Maximize Your Profit.’ will supercharge your freelancing!

Q:How long have you been working with Flex?

A: Since about the time Flex 3 came out. I was starting my affair with Rails and picked up Peter Armstrong’s “Flexible Rails” book figuring I could combine my new passion with my longtime Flash platform love. Sadly, I’ve still not been able to use both on the same project.

Yeah we still see a lot of Flex/CF and Flex/Java combos, not so much with rails… yet we hope.

Q: What do you like most about Flex?

A: Oh, I’d probably have to say data binding was a revelation coming from old school Flash development. For me, Flex sings when building data centric apps with lots of services, forms and visualizations. I still do a lot of pure AS3 apart from the Flex framework, so I’m constantly on that boundary trying to decide which way to go with my projects.

By far one of my favorite features (i think i’ve said this before, LOL) is databinding. So easy and so, ‘damn why hasn’t it always been this way?’

Q: What 1 session are you most excited about seeing at 360|Flex DC?

A: Gah, just 1?! This is 360Flex, are you kidding asking for just 1? I’m definitely looking forward to Antonio Holguin’s talks, especially the mobile UX session.

LOL Yeah it’s easy to say “All of them” much harder to pick a single one from such a great line up!

Q: What about 360|Flex DC are you most excited about?

A: The people. At past 360s I’ve talked to people writing Flex consoles for telco systems, deep sea mapping, HVAC GUIs, games, an app that tell you when to pee during a movie, and tons more. I guarantee attendees will have at least 1 eye-opening conversation during this conversation that make a significant, measurable impact on their career over the next 6 months.

Q: Do you prefer ninjas or robots?

A: Based on the movies I watched throughout the 80s, the hours I practiced catching arrows shot at my chest by my younger brother, the throwing stars, the sneaking through the woods on my tip toes…. I’m gonna have to say Ninjas.

Much like the spanish inquisition, no expects NINJAS!!! I hope the arrows were blunted :)

Q: What is one thing you’d like to see improved in the Flex Framework?

A: The file size. I’d like to only incur the weight for the bits I use.

That’d be nice. Oh wait, kinda like Reflex :) Check out Tyler Wright’s session

Q: Is there someone you’re hoping to see at 360|Flex DC?

A: Clinkinbeard. He never replies to any of my tweets; so what if we’re complete strangers. Hi Ben!

He’s shy.. If you threaten to fire him for not properly supporting his open source projects, he opens right up…

Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone who was on the fence or hadn’t heard (I know, they’re out there though) of 360|Flex to get them to come?

A: I know how hard it is to consider taking time away from project deadlines to travel and attend a conference. Despite what it feels like, you’ll survive and your projects can still get done. You can even scrum before morning sessions. And what the 360Flex experience will do for your career far outweighs the impact of a few days on your current workload.

That’s what we try to tell everyone :) 360|Flex is just a week away! Don’t miss out! You’re career will thank you! Register now!