The year they called “2011”

I end this year feeling more excited about technology and programming than I have in several years. That’s really good because for most of last year and into the middle of this year I was going through a bit of a geek crisis. Nothing really seemed to excite me as a programmer. I ended the year doing Windows Phone 7 development, which is a great development platform, but unfortunately almost nobody has the devices. I was tired of iPhone development and nothing in Flash was exciting me.

Here’s kind of how my year went:

MinimalComps

In the beginning of 2011 I did some nice updates to minimalcomps and eventually got them their own site and moved the source to github. I consider they are pretty much “done” now. I don’t think I’ve really touched them since April. There are various forks and I imagine they will enjoy a long life on github.

SWFSheet

Another Flash project I finished up early this year was SWFSheet. This allows you to make sprite sheets for use in just about any kind of animation, using SWFs generated from Flash, FlashBuilder, or anything else that outputs SWFs. This app was hugely popular. So popular that it prompted Adobe to build their own version and include it in the latest version of Flash.

Linux

On February 1 of this year, I dual booted my PC into Ubuntu and tried to see if I could use it for a full day of work. Eleven months later, I can’t imagine going back to Mac or Windows. I’m currently running Linux Mint 12, a derivative of Ubuntu, which is the best distro I’ve run across yet.

Running a Linux based OS can be a bit of a pain sometimes. It’s not quite as plug-and-play as the other mainstream OSes. You’ll likely need to roll up your sleeves and get down and dirty with some command line and config files. But damn, you learn so much. I can actually use vi without sobbing now. Google is your best friend. I’ve found solutions to almost all my issues within a couple of searches. And I understand far more about how my computer works in the process.

A few months ago I also switched over from my Sony Vaio to a Lenovo ThinkPad T-520. Custom built, pretty high end specs. Best computer I’ve ever owned.

I’m not suggesting everyone jump on board the Linux bandwagon. If you just want a computer that works and you don’t have to mess with, and are willing to give up almost all control on how your computer looks and functions, then stick with your mainstream OS. But I really don’t get how so many hard core geeks I know can be happy with those other systems. If they’d only try for a couple weeks…

JavaScript

At the end of February, I was getting interested in JavaScript. For me, the best way to learn something is to teach it. So I embarked on JavaScript Month, with the insane idea of posting an informative article on the language every day of March. And I pulled it off, gaining a lot of knowledge and a huge respect for the language in the meantime.

But after the month was up, I lost interest. I did some other experiments throughout the year, but just redoing old Flash experiments in Canvas didn’t really feel like I was pushing any envelopes.

Android

I love my Android phone (Motorola Atrix). Best phone I’ve owned. You’d think I’d be more into Android development. But it never really clicked for me. I did do some tutorials on the Infrared5 site, which was cool. But for some reason it just hasn’t sparked my interest in a big way. Still, it’s a good skill to have and I’m sure I’ll be doing more with it eventually.

Hmmm…

Yeah, that was the middle part of this year. Hmmm… Probably the peak of my geek crisis. Everything seemed boring. Flash’s main new features were Stage3D and mobile publishing, neither of which interested me. JavaScript, been there, done that. Android, meh. I was really just in limbo, waiting for something to come along and pull me out of it.

JavaScript Part 2

Amazingly, what pulled me out of the funk was JavaScript again. Not just JavaScript, but HTML, CSS, and all kinds of libraries and frameworks. My previous explorations with JS had been largely limited to putting a Canvas element on the DOM and drawing in it. But I started digging deeper into web apps and sites. Started two HTML site projects at work and I’ve learned so much in the last 2-3 months that I feel like my head is going to explode – in a good way. And still I feel that I need to cram about 10x more in there before I’m done.

On the side, I’ve been putting tons of work into a personal app I’m making, which should be ready for release any day. I’ve actually rebuilt it from scratch twice as I’ve learned more about how to structure apps. It’s currently using Backbone.js, tons of HTML and CSS, jQuery, templating, and a PHP/mySQL backend. I started to learn Ruby for the backend, but I needed to eventually get the app done, and what I needed to do I mostly knew how to do with PHP and mySQL, so that was a bit more expedient.

I then started another side project just a few days ago, also with Backbone, and that is coming along very nicely. I’m really impressed with the Backbone setup. Makes it really easy to create a clean architecture. I like the separation of concerns: HTML for basic structure. CSS for styling and layout. Backbone views and templating for population of content. Models for storing state and binding, cross-view coordination and server communication. It all really clicks for me. Any time I need to add a feature to an app, it’s very obvious where it should go and how it should be implemented within the architecture.

I look forward to all the new things I’m going to learn in 2012, with far more enthusiasm than I’ve had in many, many months.

The Flash Community

This has been a tough year for the Flash community. There’s been this HTML5 vs. Flash battle going all year. And we all know that there have been big changes to the Flash Platform over the last couple of months, so I won’t recap that. But the reaction of much of the community has left me feeling flat. I guess being called a “doucheBag” for being a “former thought leader” who was now using technologies other than Flash turned me off quite a bit. And this wasn’t by some random nut, but by a highly placed individual in a position of authority. Name withheld as he did eventually apologize.

I’m not bringing that incident up to call out that individual, but to point out the atmosphere of the community as of late. I got sucked into Flash largely because of the community surrounding it. Everyone sharing code and techniques, writing tutorials explaining how to do cool things, showing off the SWFs they made that would just blow your mind, and then handing over the source code for it. It was amazing and exhilarating. A lot of that still goes on, but not like before. And in the last few years it seems there is just more and more complaining and attacking and attempts to smear this or that technology, company, or even person(s). I just feel like I need to distance myself from all that crap.

I haven’t abandoned Flash. I still do plenty of Flash and Flex work for a living. But I need to be constantly learning new things and there’s nothing new in Flash that I want to learn that much right now. So I’m spending my time learning other things. And getting excited about what I’m learning, and probably writing about it. Don’t think that means I’ve jumped any ships.

Personal

Personally I think I’m doing quite well. As many of you know I’ve been on a running kick for the last couple of years. Lost another 25 pounds or so throughout the course of 2011, for a total of over 55 pounds since my peak a few years ago. As of today (December 30), I’ve run 1061.5 miles this year. I should pop that up to 1070 by tomorrow. That’s up just a bit over 1037 of last year. I had been shooting for 1200, but a badly pulled muscle and a prostate infection earlier in the year killed my mileage for a few months. All systems go now though, and I’m training for my first marathon this coming February – just over 8 weeks away.

Family is all good, finances are all good, health is good, learning lots of new stuff and enjoying it. Not a bad place to end the year. Hope you are doing as well or better.