Jesse Warden On Flash Lite Development

Jan 25, 03:25 AM

"How do you optimize ActionScript 2? Same way you optimize ActionScript 1, with the addition that you have to drop the ego" - Jesse Warden

He nailed it. The hardest part of my job is teaching people this. In case you didn't know, I am Architect of Mobile Applications at Adobe so I get to deal with low memory and cpu conditions daily. Every time we get a new, brilliant engineer on the team it takes them a few months to "drop the ego" and understand that if it doesn't run - the design doesn't matter.

I will say that people go overboard. I get annoyed when I see code that has one letter variable names because someone read on the Internet that it would be faster. I always keep a suite of tests handy to test on devices to see different operations in action - it can change per device. Once a day I say "Never make assumptions, show me proof."

Tip: Be careful if using getTimer() to test speed of operations, many platforms will do rounding. This means an operation that is fairly quick may actually appear slow if you are near the rounding point. 

Source: Flash Lite 2: Low RAM, Optimizing via Degraded Ego

  1. Ciao Greg,

    I had the same experience of Jesse, and the rule that I got to stick with is “keep the code as simple as possible, don’t be fancy!”.

    I would like to invite you to join the Boston Adobe Mobile and Device User Group. I think it would be great to see you partecipating to our discussions. You can join here: www.flashmobilegroup.org

    Alessandro


    — Alessandro    Jan 25, 08:32 AM    #

  2. Yo – hey Greg! Glad to see your throwing up some posts. :)

    Thanks for the tip on getTimer!

    Rob


    — Robert M. Hall    Jan 25, 10:11 AM    #

  3. Alessandro – Thanks checking it out!

    Rob – Yea it’s great to be back, my work load has lightened slightly to allow me to be a part of the community again – I missed it!


    — gburch    Jan 26, 02:01 AM    #

  4. Good to see you blogging again Greg!

    I definitely agree on not going overboard with Flash Lite development. After doing a lot of projects with OOP, patterns…etc., developing mobile projects brings a whole new perspective. Keeping things simple and sometimes using old-school methods may be more resource friendly.

    Would you be able to talk about the tests suite? I’m sure it’d benefit the Flash Lite community.

    Thanks,

    Dave


    — Dave Yang    Jan 29, 01:08 PM    #

  5. I have to say, as a “Brilliant New Engineer” (to quote Greg) It is definitely true. This is an entirely new way of thinking. Well actually, its an old way of thinking re-visited. I have been here at Adobe in the Mobile-Devices Engineering group for about a month. It has been an interesting experience having conversations with Greg and Roman to the effect of “Bow – Are you sure this has to be a function? cant we make it a variable?”. This is the type of questions you begin asking yourself almost by the minute when coding for mobile devices. Its like using an old IBM thats the size of your car, but phyisically smaller :).

    By the way, Some things in mobile that may seem like the “wrong way” to do it, is really the absolute best way to get the end result: A BETTER USER EXPERIENCE....
    — Bow Archer    Feb 2, 12:48 PM    #
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