IBM: Six Ways to write more comprehensive code

IBM recently published this article by Jeff Vogel, which I think is a must-read for any aspiring Flash developer.

As Jon Grden points out, the market is red hot for ActionScript developers. One of the fundamental issues with Flash developers is that more often than not we don’t come from computer science or engineering backgrounds. Most of the programmers here have a significant background in the arts, which oftentimes seems to be at odds with the procedural world of programming. As a result, a lot of these developers spend their time spinning wheels on how to write the most efficient code possible.

The IBM article describes the exact sort of issues ActionScript developers struggle with. It provides practical, useful tips that will make a better programmer out of you. The best part about it? None of these practices are rocket science. Every tip described is battle tested to make you better at what you do — unless you’ve already adopted these practices (good for you!).

AS3: Notes on arguments…

I keep forgetting how to handle arguments in AS3. If you haven’t started to migrate yet, you should be aware that handling arguments is among the more frustrating aspects. Arguments are much stricter in AS3, which is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you have far more control over what a method will accept (and as a result smarter, cleaner code). And a curse because… well, I already said that.

Here are a couple of quick hints on arguments that I find I need to keep reminding myself about:

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AS3: addFrameScript and BigMovieClip

Coming off the heels of this blog post about dynamically attaching code to frames in AS3, I decided to foray into ending the use of timeline code altogether.

I failed.

But I did come up with a handy dandy script that will certainly come closer.

Click on for the script and documentation.
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Apollo apps

Seems the community is getting together to show off some Apollo apps:

http://www.brandonellis.org/?p=39
http://www.apolloapps.com/
http://www.apollohunter.com/

AS3 Tip of the Day

Its that time again. Today we will be discussing the download method of the FileReference class. Unlike other methods that require a URLRequest, this one requires that request to be the complete path to the file on the server and not a relative one. While this is a pain, it is possible. Here is a download method that will do this for you:
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