Sprout, a Flash/Flex Development Blog By WeAreMammoth, Inc.

Yes, they are building a Mammoth

2008-11-20T11:31:00.002-06:00

Several friends and constituents have been pinging our headquarters with heads abuzz over the recent headlines regarding 'building a mammoth'. It is our understanding that these are indeed facts. There will soon be real, live Mammoths walking the earth. It will very likely be awkward. But, keeping with the spirit of the times, we hope it coincides with the end of our hiring freeze.

International Television Brings a Smile to My Face

2008-11-16T10:39:00.003-06:00

We get The View and they get this... it just doesn't seem fair.

The End Of Times?

2008-11-14T10:18:00.002-06:00

This must portend something dramatic....

The Happy Bus: Making your job an art form

2008-11-14T01:15:00.009-06:00

I'm convinced that people who love what they do for a living do so because they think of their work as an art form. Listen to any chef, doctor, architect, politician, maid, or programmer who likes talking about their work. You'll find their passion lies deeply entrenched in the creativity of their craft.

I'm also convinced you can make any job an art form. Take, for instance, a Chicago bus driver who could so easily just...drive. Instead, he drives "The Happy Bus," preaches, gives character and context to the same street he's driven down year after year, and makes his passengers smile. He makes the daily route down Halsted street an event.

Find the art in your work, whatever that may be.

Side note: For those of you that live in Chicago, the video is a great look at how colorful and rich Maxwell street used to be. I wish I had a chance to visit it before it turned into this.

A Rambling Post About Some Kinda Naked Surgeon...

2008-11-13T17:24:00.007-06:00

I'm a fan of pretty much all of the advice and ideas contained within the hallowed leather bound pages of The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks. If you haven't read it and are even the least bit involved in software engineering, I recommend checking it out or at a minimum reading the Wikipedia article summarizing its main themes.

One of the most important essays is about how to best organize a team when developing a system. Using a surgical team as a metaphor, Brooks recommends having one chief surgeon that leads the team, does most of the critical work (and planning beforehand), and directs the rest of the team to perform the ancillary tasks required to complete the surgery efficiently. This ties in directly, I believe, with his claim in an earlier essay that the most important trait of a successful project is one that has conceptual integrity, which can most realistically be achieved when only one or two people are in charge of designing a system.

We try to stick to this philosophy here at WAM. Often times, even when we have a new idea to add to X2O, Ka Wai and I will discuss its merits and whether the features fit the arc of the system's reason for existence. I've referred back to a one-page write up that Ka Wai (the architect behind X2O both in name and function) wrote up a long while back to see if the new additions I may have in mind square with the essence of X2O. Sometimes, a feature may not make it out the door because it isn't necessary or it adds complexity at too high a cost. Sometimes, it breaks the experience a user has with the product. Whatever the reason, the end result is a product that remains focused and fit.

While some people may cringe at the thought of a chief designer (be it surgeon, architect, or engineer), believing that they will be stifled by such limits on their ART, systems are always better off for having one; they enable developers to use the full power of their mind, creativity, and imagination roam free within the borders defined by the designer. Constraints allow you to learn new, more efficient ways of reaching goals that would otherwise have been achieved in a way that likely would've broken the integrity of the system.

While sitting around with friends back in my teenage heartthrob days staring at the stars, joking and rambling on about nothing in particular was worthwhile and meaningful in its own way, no tangible problems ever got solved -- which isn't what that kind of freedom is best suited for anyway. Instead, I feel that it is best used for brainstorming ideas, developing concepts, and inspiring new thoughts in general; in the world of system and software design, this kind of thing should happen before any project gets underway, not in the midst of working on a real task.

Lastly, having a concept from the start forces you to design your system ahead of time and plan every aspect of the system, including how and under what circumstances it can change. Plans make the point of all this work transparent to all members of the team, and likewise, team members' thoughts focus on the core meaning behind the system. Additionally, transparency has a tendency to reduce confusion and stress among a team, since nobody can let their mind wander and get distracted from the fundamentals of the system. As someone once said, "When being naked is the norm, fitness is no longer optional."

Cairngorm or photosynthesis?

2008-11-12T15:43:00.008-06:00

http://www.cairngormdocs.org/tools/CairngormDiagramExplorer.swf

http://members.tripod.com/beckysroom/photosynthesis1.jpg

Office 2007, sadness + gladness

2008-11-11T12:08:00.006-06:00

We've had Office 2007 for some time now, and I continue to be enveloped in a deep sadness every time I have to 'discover' where some old feature has been covertly tucked away in their 'new' layout and menu system. Seriously, it's been over a year, and I still don't understand why I'm inserting an image under 'insert', but not a 'comment' (have to go to review to do that). This multiplied by every other simple thing word is supposed to enable us to do quicker. But, with every dark cloud, a silver lining. Behold, something kinda intuitive and useful which helps me along my tortoise path:

To create a table, no more "er, well, let's click this number-stepper for 3 rows, then, um, let's see, four columns". Nope, just a grid where you drag your mouse over the desired number of rows and columns. That's it. Phew.

Update: Er, I meant 2007.

A travel booking site which finally gets it?

2008-11-10T10:32:00.007-06:00

I simply cannot count how many times I've been on the homepage of www.travelocity.com ... during the same session. Sometimes I screw up the dates. Sometimes, I'll decide on a different city or airport. Regardless, I have to cut bait and head back to the entry page to adjust my trip details. Take a look at most other travel sites, you'll see the same.

It might be old news, but Hotels.com finally did a bit of research and realized this was a bit aggravating. Here's their solution:

They've integrated a persistent dashboard with all relevant seach criteria to keep the user from ping ponging back and forth, just to change dates, etc. Also a nice to see, is the range filter component (for ratings, price, etc.) ... something that has taken a while to become a staple interface element.

So, to further enhance the experience of this site, I'd like to see the integration of the property details into each of those result items. Right now, I click on a hotel, and the page breaks, and removes my dashboard and orientation:

Any reason why they can't simply integrate this content into an accordion-style fold out right there in that result item? They'd need to re-work some of the real estate obviously. But, the user might not feel so stranded ... that is, until they discover that tiny, green 'back to results' button in the upper left.

Quality starts and a save: Starter-reliever development

2008-11-10T08:57:00.008-06:00

I'm not a huge fan of pair programming. Mainly, that whole two-people-sitting-at-a-desk thing.

It requires a bit too much cohesiveness and etiquette with your fellow developer that I simply don't have. It also compromises each developer's unique programming style. For instance, I tend to program incredibly loose, at first, and refactor my mess very frequently. Someone else might do just the opposite. My way works better...for me. If I had to work in tandem with someone that didn't work my way, we'd both be incredibly frustrated.

A better methodology that I've been using is what I'll call Starter-Reliever development. It really works much like a pitching staff in a baseball game, taking into account the natural "fatigue" that occurs during a development cycle. Mustafa and I have used this technique pretty successfully on our work with X2O (Mustafa as a starter, myself as a reliever).

The starter and reliever start a programming session by deciding two things:

What are we building
How are we doing it architecturally

It's critical that both starter and reliever understand exactly how the architecture will pan out.

Starters
The starter is responsible for writing the majority of the code and sticking to the plan. Should he diverge from the plan (because he found a better technique or a flaw in the original plan), he just needs to relay to the reliever exactly what's happening. Starters have to be bull-headed, take risks, and fight through obstacles. They also must understand the big picture just as much as the reliever.

Starters, doing the bulk of the programming, will eventually lose focus and energy. They decide when they're done programming and need to be taken out of the game. Like a pitcher qualifying for a win, these prerequisites must be met before they can take themselves out:

All the major tasks of the programming session are completed and functional
Any loose ends to minor tasks must be relayed to the reliever

Relievers
The relievers job is to finish the game. He must be incredibly attentive to detail - a bit of obsessive-compulsiveness is not a bad thing. Since he's fresh into the game, he's got the stamina to finish up minor tasks (usually the mundane ones). The reliever also spots simple opportunities for refactoring to keep the code in good shape. Ultimately, the reliever picks the starter's last few innings up and saves the game. At the end of a reliever's stint, the application should be 100% complete.

I far prefer this approach for a couple reasons. First, it lets two talented programmers not get in each other's way or compromise their development habits for another. Second, it ensures that a fresh developer is working on the application at all times. In pair programming, you're likely to have both the "driver" and "observer" wear out at the same times.

I don't think starter-reliever programming works for everyone. But, if you can find the right qualities in a quality starter and a shut-down reliever, there's a game out there to be won.

A mascot for old times sake

2008-11-06T16:02:00.002-06:00

We have many things to thank the Japanese for. And it just got much more personal. I just don't know what we might dress him up as for Halloween. A dog?

Shed a little light on Cloud Computing

2008-11-06T09:52:00.005-06:00

The stream of banter around "cloud computing" seems unending. Every week brings some new release from some megalith company presenting some suite of 'cloud computing' services. So, what the hell does cloud computing actually mean? Nicholas Carr has a pretty good, not-scary overview and example of the subject.

So, how might this new wave help the mighty mammoths here on a practical level? As we move towards an official public release of X2O, there will be a need to move much of the storage (databases, visual assets, etc.) onto such a cloud, and possibly some of the more processor intensive duties of the X2O framework itself.

Even more so though, X2O embodies the same philosophy described in the article (now go read it!). The whole point of the technology is to allow developers to 'get building' -- sideline the need for server set up and hosting, learning myriad programming languages, etc. and get down to the love (of building the app).

Might our 'cloud' running on a 'cloud' be the dawn of a new era of ultra-abstract computing concepts? Something ultra-cute, like Cloud-to-Cloud computing? Or, Cloudy-Cloud? Probably not. But just in case it is, ©!

Misleading Site Navigation and the Missing Swan

2008-11-03T16:27:00.004-06:00

Keith Peters, a pillar of the Flash/Actionscript community, posted an interesting little video of a game in which players 'paintball' to discover the environment they're in. For some reason, it made me thirsty. But, I digress.

I watched this whilst planning for a site re-architecting, where the direction provided was to be a bit outside of the box. Now, I'm a flash developer at heart. First thing I'm thinking is a website where you navigate with your eyeballs only. And maybe the Z key. But only after you've gotten your avatar through the first ten stages of digital stratospheres.

Then I hit this video, and me thinks, "This is a great analogue to the oft found, poorly planned navigation we so often encounter as visitors to the online marketing realms." And yes, thats how my brain actually converses with itself.

Charged with creating an experiential, er, deep-dive into a brand, we often release a product which gives the impression that the marketer just as soon would send you floating on an iceberg around greenland as have you learn about their product. Note: I am a reader but not the most open-armed fan of guys like Jacob Nielsen.

So, where did the re-architecting end up? Well, in a good place. No, no Z keys. In fact, the navigation (graphical features on the page with accurate text description, of the kind one clicks) of the existing site does just fine. I didn't recommend we 'improve' it, though they could look a bit more appealing.

The outside of the box came through providing a tangible and easy to use set of tools encouraging dialogue and interaction. Isn't that what the internet is for? Ka Wai commented that being 'outside of the box' these days is, perhaps, staying right there inside of the box where you know everybody.

Flash vs. Ajax?

2008-10-31T09:59:00.002-05:00

Whichever shoe fits. We happen to think that the tools available for building Flex, and the interbrowser compatibility give Flex the upper hand. As for raw numbers on usage, Flex888 has some pretty interesting stats. Now, this doesn't imply Flex vs. Ajax ... could mean banners, animations, videos, etc ... any type of flash. Still an interesting set of numbers.

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

2008-10-30T10:15:00.003-05:00

A quote by dear ol' Abe Lincoln. Stuck in my head, it's concise, clever, and speaks to all of humanity. I vote Abe in '08.

Just plain nice

2008-10-30T10:08:00.002-05:00

A great lookin' one pager. You know we like that kinda stuff, don't ya. This one has a great crafted feel to it, a nice subtle use of the 'rich' techs (flash, javascript) and a great content flow all wrapped up in a pretty, vertical, single page. Nice.

No more please. Really. No more.

2008-10-23T11:53:00.002-05:00

It happens every day to millions of Americans. They receive an unsolicited email from some company where they've bought something online. They put up with it every day for a few months, not reading it, just deleting it. Then, one fine morning, they say "enough". They scroll down to the bottom-most regions of that smoothly crafted piece of marketing, to the finest of fine print they can possibly read without a telescope and click "unsubscribe". Then, presented with a browser pop up, most likely saying "Sorry to see you go, are you sure you wish to unsubscribe?", they click 'yes'. The next screen confirms they've been removed from the list. They're elated. Back to business. They check emails a half an hour later, and what happens? This:

Now, what part of "unsubscribe" do these companies not understand? The customer just saw a screen confirming their wishes to not be disturbed, could they not have simply put this exact content in that screen? Must they continue the taunting with "you may continue to receive email from us, so please write to this email address with any problems"? My goodness.

X2O is change we can believe in.

2008-10-21T21:54:00.013-05:00

X2O, our home grown, web-based data modeling platform for Flex applications is now live at www.x2oframework.com. It started out as an interesting thought, but after about two hard (yet fast) years developing it, we want the rest of the world to start using it. We hope it changes the way people think about developing Flex apps. Here's a 4-minute video intro (a better quality version is available here).

Like any general programming framework, there's a bit of a learning curve. But, compared to other frameworks, I think it's a tremendously smooth and addictive learning process. The sheer volume of stuff X2O creates for you, like...

The underlying object-relational database
SQL queries for corresponding CRUD commands
Server code/architecture
SOAP services
AS3 value objects that map to the object-relational data model
Out-of-the-box services for emailing and file uploading
Secure CMS tool
Documentation via ASDocs
(and not to sound infomercially, but dozens of other goodies)

...is invaluable and more than worth the initial effort. We've come to take it for granted at WAM, to the point where having to do any custom server-side programming, XML parsing, or anything that isn't just about programming pure client-side application functionality makes us cringe.

Knowing how to data model well is a key factor. But, we hope the documentation and videos on the X2O site are enough to get those that are interested on the right track.

Most of the frequent blogging about X2O will now move over to blog.x2oframework.com. We hope you sign up, read about it, enjoy it, and spread the word.

411 needs a little 911

2008-10-16T00:12:00.006-05:00

I called 411 today.

I wanted to know the phone number to the Jewel-Osco on Milwaukee and Ashland in Chicago. Mike and I were buying dinner in preparation for an evening of X2O video recordings and we needed to know if they sold out of their delicious fried chicken. I will leave the discussion of Jewel Fried Chicken to another blog post. It is simply worth noting that JFC is amazing.

I asked the 411 lady for the "number of the Jewel-Osco on Milwaukee and Ashland." I heard her type on what, to any discerning ear, sounded like an Apple IIe keyboard, and then she said she could not find it. In fact, the nearest one she found was on 1220 S. Ashland Avenue, some 24 blocks south of my location. I then suggested she look for the Jewel-Osco in the 60622 zip code.

"I'm sorry...I can't search a location by zip code."

As it turns out, the Jewel is on Paulina, just northeast of Milwaukee and just west of Ashland. Apparently, 411 operators are not given the capability of finding the phone number of a location unless you know the exact street that location is on. Even a zip code, which, according to Wikipedia, was standardized to the familiar 5-digit format in 1963, is of no use to a 411 operator in 2008.

I suggest the next president replace whatever arcane hardware these poor 411 operators use with $250 netbooks and a CAT5 cable. I'd like my 75 cents back too.

A sharp left

2008-10-15T21:27:00.003-05:00

An interesting little tidbit I noticed in this evenings debate is that both candidates are left handed. Strange tidbits on our southpaw presidents. I'm probably the last one to notice. More interesting, is the choice of writing utensils each gentleman used. Mr. Obama, a fine pen. Mr. McCain, a fat sharpie. What? A sharpie? They each take notes during the debates, and I'd be interested to see the kinds of doodles each makes. John McCain is obviously more broad stroke, and probably has poorer eyesight. Mr. Obama, probably more hair, leaves, texture in his little masterpieces.

Big in Japan

2008-10-15T21:06:00.004-05:00

Who knew? This ad is everywhere in Japan. Here, it's featured on a vending machine. What is Boss? It's a canned coffee. Is it good? It's alright. What is Tom doing in this ad? I'm not sure. Is he tired? Looks like it. The hardest thing to comprehend here is that in the larger branded billboard ads, it's Tom sitting atop a giant rainbow, not unlike the one used on the middle can. I'm stumped. But hey, apparently he's big in Japan.

...An Open Alternative

2008-10-14T09:30:00.001-05:00

I'm a big fan of OpenOffice.org and since version 3.0 was just released, I wanted to take a minute and recommend it to everyone out there as a great alternative to similar suites out there. It's free to use, the source code is open, and it supports ODF. It won't cost you much other than a bit of time to decide whether you like it or not, so there really isn't much of an excuse to pass it over. I've been using it for a long while now and aside from some rare pains converting documents from non-standard and non-open formats, it's been really solid.

It doesn't happen often

2008-10-12T08:33:00.003-05:00

Can an agency win awards for their own website? One of the best experiences (in communications flashware cateogory -- yeah, I made that up) is the new Razorfish site. It's hot. It has a playfulness about it, a post-modern appeal (read space odysee plus redbull), bing-bongs, the whole thing. Much praise. Especially for such a big shop as AA-RF. We Are Jealous.

Life just got, er, funnier

2008-09-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

My feet hurt ...

Tell it to me

2008-09-08T21:36:00.003-05:00

As we get closer to an initial release of our beloved X2O, we've been discussing how to introduce it, how to teach it, how to spin it. There are some brilliant other 'mediums' we looked to for inspiration, such as the "plain english" series from CommonCraft. Google also has employed an alternative type of embellishment for their technical documentation.

I am the egg head ... coo coo ... ha choo! Excuse me.

Triple-play(ed)

2008-08-28T17:15:00.003-05:00

I am the endlessly grumpy telecommunications customer. Last big woe, almost 2 years ago, was a $16,000 phone bill from Verizon Wireless and the infamous 'courtesy call' which delivered the news. Says me, "How much? How the $#*@ did I rack up that kinda bill and not get any kind of 'courtesy call' prior to that?". Says the 'courtesy caller', "I'm not sure, sir. I'm just letting you know the balance on your account, and I don't have any more information. You'll have to call 1-800-XXXX to get more information." Sweet.

This time around, it's Comcast ... two weeks deep in our residential contract (internet, cable, phone), we're bombarded with endless cold calls. Now, I would've figured there'd be a little lapse in timing here, but no. They sold the number within two days. One particular bastard is "Bank of Hawaii" calling at 20 minute intervals with an automated message. All this after they told us the wrong phone number when signing up (which we gave to all family members, both domestic and foreign -- sorry 'old' Comcast customer 338472 who got all those calls).

So, big ol' score for Comcast. I'm payin' $100 per month for this, how much are they getting?

By the way, when is someone gonna write about flex or flash again?