PiXELWiT

I attended Flash and Flex author Joey Lott’s seminar “How To Architect Flex Applications” (hosted by CPAUG and CPFUG) last Friday and I must admit I wasn’t as disappointed as Mr. Lott promised I would be. Joey Lott assured us that we’d be horribly bored and bewildered by his dry technical presentation and even recommended a brief nap as a sound alternative.

Fortunately I managed to stay awake long enough to learn about the “Agile” software development method. Although this technique is best suited for large projects with a team of developers, some of its principles can still be applied to smaller projects.

• Break the project into discrete periods of time.
• Set an easy to understand goal at the outset of each time period.
• Do your best to meet that goal.
• When the time period arrives, you must provide a functioning piece of software that the user can test and criticize.
• Listen to the criticism and set new goals for the next time period.
• Repeat until the client is satisfied (or out of money 😉 )

After talking about Agile for a while, our intrepid presenter noticed a few glazed eyes in the audience so he scrapped his planned itinerary and improvised a new presentation covering topics more appropriate for a less experienced Flex crowd. Although it may not have been the best utilization of his talent, it was quite gratifying to learn the basics from someone with such a deep knowledge of Flex. Joey answered all questions thoroughly and effectively while somehow managing to keep the tone light and conversational.

I haven’t read his books but I hope they’re as interesting as his presentation was. Thanks for stopping by Mr. Lott, your presentation was informative and enlightening.

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