Archive for September, 2006
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
It was about time! According to PowerFlasher a new (and free) update of FDT is due in October. But it will not support AS3/Flex, this will come in quartal 1/2007.
I still need to use AS2 very often for jobs so it’s good to see the Eclipse 3.2 incompatibility being fixed very soon. However I’m using Flex Builder (plug-in) more and more to get on with AS3 and Flex and it’s hard to miss all those great features from FDT there! Therefore it would be awesome if Adobe is providing an update for Flex Builder in between. Some very helpful features from FDT that I’d love to use for AS3 are templates (we all use them, they make coding a lot faster) and Mark Occurances (this might seem inferior but once you used it you know that it is the number one killer feature). Another thing that bothers me is that one needs automatic build active to have compile-time error reporting. It would be cool if the Flex Compiler would report errors on-the-fly like MTASC does it, so I can turn off automatic build and use Ant for building instead which I prefer.
Filed under Dev | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
I’m really missing one great invention that has yet to come for global consumption … books made of electronic paper! I’m not talking about these LCD display-like books or these foil-like papers that are already used for some advertising purposes. What I’d love to see available is a pocket notebook made of finely woven ePaper that I can plug via USB to my PC and load documents on it, which then are displayed on the paper and can be read just like a normal paper book. I prefer reading long texts on paper rather than on the screen!
I often find texts on the web, tutorials or other interesting information that I could read while on one of these long Tokyo subway rides or simply while hanging out in the living room but it would be too elaborate to print them out and fold them into my Hobonichi Techo.
One could argue that I could need a notebook PC but that would be too much, all I’m asking for is a book for reading. Hey it would be cool if it also uses Solar cells so it doesn’t need to be recharged and while we are at it the pages could glow so it can be read in the dark too … oh well, one can dream, but this definitely doesn’t sound like a far away utopia!
Filed under Misc | No Comments »
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
I just had to refuse the second job offer this year where I would have to fix somebody else’s written ActionScript 1 spagetti code! I don’t know what is the reason for agencies trying to give such jobs but it’s save to say that the troubles of digging through the messy and often timeline-spread code is enough to justify an estimate that sounds too high for the client.
The question comes up why they don’t just ask the person who originally wrote the code! That could have many reasons but if a client comes back to me and asks me to fix something in a years old project then I’ll do it for a measly payment simply because I know my source code. It’s a total different thing to fix somebody’s code, especially if it’s pre-AS2.
I always feel uncomfortable rejecting jobs, even such ones so I would be interested how others handle this situation! Do you usually reject such jobs or do you accept them?
Filed under Misc | 16 Comments »
