Yesterday I was wondering…is an Engineer also a Geek, or is a Geek also an Engineer?

Adobe’s Flash is funny, because it’s a bit of a development tool, and a little bit of a cool gadget toy for geeks. Particularly in its earlier versions. You wouldn’t commence with a blank page and a blinking cursor gazing at you…like most coding tools.

You would start by drawing an ellipse, then you would animate it…and in a minute or so , you've a bouncing ellipse. Go on playing with the tool, and all of a sudden you got a game!

Over time Flash became more of a “mature” platform…which simply means you get more “blinking cursor” screens and less “draw the ellipse” screens.
It also means that Actionscript is getting more significant and structured. You have got to handle events, you got those fancy try and catch statements, and even interfaces.

Was it still a favourite toy?

Now Adobe is back at it..and they are pretty serious…VertexBuffers, IndexBuffers, Shaders, AGAL…oh my!

The reality is that Stage3D is quite of a hardcore tool. Not for the faint of heart. Actually not for those that like to “code by drawing”.
Flash 3D will need pretty much the next generation of “to the metal” coders.

Are you up for it?

This is a typical paradigm in the career of an engineer. Technology evolves. Engineers will find themselves “obsolete” at least three times during the course of their career.
Meaning that as an engineer, for 3 times in your career you must re-invent yourself. Go back to study, and start all the way over again. Yay!

Frightening?

Maybe…but the geek would say “Funny! I wanna play! Ultimately something new!”

That’s what Flash3D is all about…don’t re-invent yourself…just play!

And you? Are you an Engineer or a Geek

Marco Scabia is a 3D Flash developer as well as a busy entrepreneur. He made an AGAL Reference Card available as a free download, to help the community of Flash 3D get their bearings into the world of Flash Stage3D coding. Marco maintains a blog on Flash 3D development.