Justen Holter
Q: Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I am 25… wait no, 24? I love the internet, snowboarding back in my home state of Colorado, and spending saturday mornings mountain biking. I graduated from Full Sail University in late 2005 and have been living in Miami ever since. Some previous projects include wearethirdeye.com, bacardi.com and most recently ownyourc.com.
Q: How would you describe a day in your shoes?
It all starts around 10:30am, Einstein’s, plain bagel, toasted, with shmear. Right now I am neck deep in a project along side my good friend and Art Director, Bryant Florez. As a developer, I really enjoy this part of the project. It’s that span of time when you’re in full stride. You know exactly what you have to do, and you can really focus on the details. Everyday I look for new and more creative ways to bridge the designer/developer workflow. Right now we have a solid blend of Flash/Flex and SVN. After lunch Skate2 session, then back to attack the second half of the day. I keep in touch with my friends over iChat and Twitter, but for the most part I am never more then an arms length from my laptop.
Q: How long have you been using Flash/Flex?
I have been an Actionscript developer for just around 5 or 6 years now. I hated Flash at first, I came from an HTML/CSS background and loved the control and logic behind that sort of work. I was very precise and had spent a good amount of time mastering table based layouts. It wasn’t until a year later that I had my breakthrough moment. I purchased “Flash to The Core” from the bookstore, and finally, it all started falling into place. I still get frustrated with the occasional uneven pixel, but those are few and far between.
Q: What is it about Flash/Flex that you like the most? What would you change?
I am a dev at heart, I love organization and logic. But I also have a huge appreciation for design and aesthetics. Flash is this awesome collision point of design and programming. Flash provides a place where all these different skill sets can merge and compliment each other. It’s part design, part development, and everything in-between.
Q: What was the most challenging thing you ever did using actionscript or an actionscript based library/framework?
A couple days after returning from FITC in 2005, I decided to build a photo gallery. I didn’t know much Actionscript and was just introduced to the whole “OOP” thing during the conference. I was excited to showcase the awesome time my friends and I had, and apply everything I picked up in Toronto. I was completely lost! Here I was trying to decipher my lecture notes, and work out classes, and strict typing. All the while thinking “What the hell am I doing?!”. I ended up succeeding with what I can only describe as a Frankenstein of dynamically static object oriented code! Looking back, that was definitely one of those great moments in my life where I realized exactly what I wanted to do. I haven’t put Actionscript down ever since.
Q: What suggestions or sources of inspiration/motivation would you like to share with up and coming Developers?
Consume as much information as possible. Stay as organized as possible. And have fun! Programming is only as fun as you make it. If your passionate about what you do and take pride in your work, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences in your life. Lastly the most important advice I can give to any Flash dev… Keep your libraries organized and your classes commented, you never know who might be poking around in there someday!
Great article and inspiration. Thanks for sharing.