Interview with a Flash Developer

http://evolve.reintroducing.com/

Community Scholar

Q: Please tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Matt Przybylski and I was originally born in Kielce, Poland in 1983 but moved to the US when I was 7 to “live the American dream”. My formal education is a Bachelor’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Art in Schaumburg in Multimedia & Web Design. Upon graduation I was a jack of all trades, master of nothing so I decided to learn Flash. I’m self taught so I’m not as technical as other programmers because I don’t have a long background in old school languages like C or Python. This is a hinderance of sorts because it takes me a lot longer to understand core concepts since I am a visual learner (was originally a designer then did some 3D), but I guess I manage to get by. I work as a freelance Flash developer for some large agencies in downtown Chicago, most notably DraftFCB and Razorfish as well as doing my own personal freelance work. Outside of Flash dev I like to lead a normal life with my girlfriend, dog, and two guinea pigs. I am in love with everything basketball related and if I could drop Flash development to be involved in basketball coaching at some rank I would do it in a heartbeat (well, let me take that back, I CAN do that but I have bills to pay).

Q: How would you describe a day in your shoes?

A day in my shoes usually starts off with me waking up relatively later than most normal people. I work from home so my commute is about 10 seconds down two flights of stairs into my office. I then go about frolicking on the internet and getting caught up with my RSS feeds/Twitter or whatever news the day brings. I usually watch SportsCenter while I begin the day off although I have not been doing that recently as much as I used to because it gets rather distracting. I do some programming throughout the day and then almost religiously watch Around the Horn/Pardon the Interruption on ESPN at 4 PM CST. I then program some more, eat, either go play basketball or watch TV with the lady, and then finish off the day relaxing. I think its very important to get away from the computer, especially when you work from home, to keep your sanity.

Q: How long have you been using Flash/Flex?

I’ve been using Flash for a little over four years now since Flash MX 2004. My approach to projects has greatly changed since that time as I’m sure everyone else’s has. For a long time I was a procedural coder until I got thrown into the fire at Razorfish on an OOP project. I came out with a starting point for knowledge about OOP but hungered for more (I’m huge on organization and OOP seemed like it was way more organized than procedural coding, which it is) so I picked up some books, read some tutorials, and now I absolutely can’t stand coding in a procedural manner (its to the point where I sometimes forget how to do things if they aren’t part of a class). After a while I started using external IDEs for code development like SE|PY and FlashDevelop. I then moved over to a Macbook Pro as my primary machine so I was unable to use that. Luckily I was introduced to FDT while at Razorfish by Samuel Agesilas (during his brief stint there) and it quickly became the standard at the office for every Flash dev. Having worked with it for so long at work and loving it I adopted it as my main IDE for coding in Flash and have been using it ever since. Please note, however, that I only code in FDT and I still use the Flash IDE extensively to set up my assets as well as to compile my projects. I’m not into ANT and all that other madness, I literally just use FDT to code quicker. Lastly, if Sam is or ever does read this, what happened to you lil buddy? Hit me up when you get a chance!

Q: What is it about Flash/Flex that you like the most? What would you change?

I love that Flash is a marriage of design as well as code. While I do mainly focus on the coding aspect of Flash these days, I still love to look at great designs and follow great design blogs on a regular basis. I love making great designs “pop” and having things come to life. There is no better feeling than when coding is going well and your project is taking shape. The end result is always fun to look at.

There is not one thing in particular that I’d change about Flash, just small things here and there. I think that Adobe should incorporate some of the great APIs that come out from the community into their product a little better so that they can be available to everyone in the mass market, not just the people who are following all these blogs that are all over the place. There are a lot of times when I want to use something or create something only to find out a better version already exists but it takes a long time to find that better version. A centralized location for a listing of the best APIs to do each task would be great (now that I think of it, maybe I’ll do that as a side project of mine…).

Q: What was the most challenging thing you ever did using actionscript or an actionscript based library/framework?

Probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever made with AS was a photo editor I did for a client recently. I’ve never had to dig so deep into the Flash API to do some of the stuff I was doing and luckily I had some help from some really good developers to allow me to finish off the project in a timely fashion (although I grossly underestimated my hours on it and it was a flat rate project). I’m actually going to be diving back into the project next month for a second version of it so maybe I will be able to clean some of it up (which, I’m not gonna lie about, I don’t enjoy doing like a lot of developers do. I enjoy finishing stuff up and then moving on; refactoring code is definitely not a hobby of mine).

Q: What suggestions or sources of inspiration/motivation would you like to share with up and coming Developers?

The biggest thing you have to remember is that we are in the field of technology and technology is ever changing. You have to enjoy doing things like reading blogs (ahem, http://evolve.reintroducing.com) and tutorials because it will help you survive and keep up with the ever changing landscape. For students just graduating college, do NOT rely on your education in school to get you work. You have to put in the time outside of school to get where you want to be. I’ve often seen too many people who are in school just go to school, learn whatever there, and when they go home its like Flash doesn’t exist. You will not get by like that in this field.

You should also look at what the best people/studios in the industry are doing on a regular basis and thrive to be as good as them. You have to stay grounded and realize that you will not be that good overnight, but if you set your goals high you will have something to shoot for and it will help you in your journey. Ask questions on blogs and forums and there actually are good people out there who will help you. Just remember to be respectful and keep in mind that these people are probably working while you are asking them questions so don’t rush them. There are tons of people willing to help those that are just starting out (that’s actually how I learned a lot, asking questions on Kirupa) but you have to be patient and understand that they are not there to serve only you but others (and themselves) as well.

Lastly, get out and enjoy life. Sitting at the computer for 14 hours of the day will only wear you out in the long run. Have hobbies outside of this but manage your time wisely and you will be good to go.