Well for those of you who have checked back in regularly have probably come across my earlier posts regarding my adventures in Actionscript 3.0. Well they are no longer short bursts of ActionScript bliss, but it has steadily grown to become a full on obsession with this new language!
Recently I was chatting with an old colleague who was interning at Industrial Brand at the time and who now works at Ion Branding + Design. He will often pop up online asking questions about Actionscript, which initially I found somewhat confusing because I had really only known him as a designer, but alas it seems we both began our parallel journey into AS 3.0 around the same time. Well it seems Mr. Shettler (forgive me if I spelled your name wrong!) has slowly been blossoming into quite a flash developer!
Late last week, Mathew posed an interesting question to me: why is it so hard to find any good resources online regarding AS 3.0?? Since then I have been left thinking more and more about this issue, because from my time developing in AS 2, I have never had troubles finding communities and resources to support my Flash fetish. So, I was actually a little confused by his comments. When I really started to think about it I quickly realized that to some degree he was right, even I often have troubles finding relevant, helpful resources relating to ActionScript 3.0… and I am honestly left wondering why this is?
As I mentioned earlier I have always found that the online communities such as Flashkit.com and Actionscript.org to be extremely useful resources for tutorials and their forums where users can post Flash-related questions. But I have also noticed recently that it seems that the communities surrounding AS 3 are not nearly as vibrant as their predecessors, this has left me wondering what’s going on. After some reflection I have come to a personal conclusion that there is a bit of a class struggle going on between the Actionscript elite and the weekend warriors. I began to feel that because AS 3 is still so new, those who have taken the time and effort to really delve deep into its secrets have now become regarded as modern day alchemists producing precious materials from the detritus of now outdated programming languages of yesterday. I also began to realize that the web development industry is in part driving this; these days the demand for competent, efficient flash developers is greater than it has ever been before. With Actionscript 3 having just been released, this new technology is soaring.
As one of these new breed of developers I do not take my skills for granted, and I would certainly not want to give the knowledge that I have worked so hard to acquire away for free, but nonetheless I still feel a strong commitment to the community which has helped me develop my skills over the past 3 years. This is why I choose to take a different path down my journey into AS 3, one which makes this new language feel logical, approachable and efficient. These are all things that people do not normally associate with programming languages, but I feel quite strongly that as an advanced developer, this is the approach we should all be taking. I don’t wish people to regard me as some sort of wizard, I wish to share my knowledge and help build a community.
This is why I have tried as much as possible to participate in the online communities which have so graciously donated their time and effort to helping me improve my skills, whether it be answering someones question in a forum, or running one of our weekly tutorials as an introduction to Actionscript 3.0. I would very much like to help the community of developers grow, after all, that is the only way we will continue to innovate and captivate the way that Flash developers have in the past. So for all you developers out there, do the right thing, pass on some of your knowledge and share in this amazing and vibrant community. Perhaps even take the time to share your thoughts on this, leave us a comment and let us know what your thoughts are.
Any wizard worth his or her salt has got to have a staff. While the appearances can vary greatly, they should all have at least one thing in common. Light. We’ve all seen it. The staff held high in the dark, a blazing beacon of power… Some of you (you know who you are) would love to have one. But it was either too expensive or too hard to make or you thought batteries weren’t authentic…
Well… Call it a whim, but I’ve decided to share the secret of making your own wizard’s staff. No batteries required and just about anybody can do it. It really works, and it’s not magic. But it will seem like it…
http://www.hankakins.com/wizard_staff.html