Blog entries

Adobe Flex Notes

Peggy O'Connor — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:39:00 +0100

Sometimes it is hard to find out how to do simple things when building a Flex or AIR application. It's not that the documentation is lacking. There are thousands of doc pages at Adobe, and then there are the wonderful video lessons over at Lynda.com. The problem is that there is so much, and when you have a little question, your little question's answer is just a tiny dot in a sea of information, theory, and information about information.

So... here's a teeny questionRead More...

Why coding is fun.

Peggy O'Connor — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:35:00 +0100

You aren't supposed to do it this way. You are supposed to be in a sterile room, with no surprises, a thick plan, and a highly detailed map. But web development is sometimes very different from developing indoors. Often you are dealing with other people's oversights and follies, and since you can't just rewrite everything, you have to figure out ways to code around a thing rather than just burning the village down. You are in the wild, stalking the ephemeral.

It is the high drama Read More...

Form sort of follows function

Peggy O'Connor — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:43:06 +0100

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
-- Louis Sullivan, Architect, 1896

I have noticed that most people, when pondering a new website, begin by looking at ready made templates,Read More...

This and That about PEAR Quickform Package

Peggy O'Connor — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:48 +0100

I posted a question on a list I participate in and this is the conversation so far. I thought the discussion had some useful information, so I'm posting it with Ed's permission:

Does anyone here have any opinions about QuickForm, the PEAR package? I am using it in a fairly big way right now, that is, the app I'm writing using QuickForm will serve as a checkout form to a store application and there are many stores which will be using it. I've used it here and there on otherRead More...

Web development is not like building a model airplane

Peggy O'Connor — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:42:40 +0100

When you create a presence on the web, you can't just pull the parts out of a box, glue it together with the language of your choice, publish, and then stand back and admire it.

It's more like going to war. You want to be well armed, and have a battle plan, but when things get gritty, you have to be able to morph with the circumstances, improvise, and be willing try out the most cutting edge whiz kid state of the art weaponry when the opportunity presents itself.

Whatever youRead More...

What I learned over Thanksgiving

Peggy O'Connor — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

iday, I gave myself a mini-crash course in advanced Adobe Flex development. I learned to use the Timer class -- which is very cool because you can fire off functions after a designated amount of time has passed. Still haven't dreamed up all the things this could be useful for -- I used it in a slide show, probably the most obvious, fairly pedestrian use of this class. I'm sure I'll think up more subtle ways to use it. And I learned t create a configurable component.

This is great.Read More...