Flash within the Dutch Guild of Front-end Programmers
Bobby van der Sluis
Refunk
Refunk
- An interactive agency based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Specialized in audio-visual websites en dynamic product campaigns
- Concept, design and technology
- Web-standards-friendly Flash development
Guild of Front-end Programmers
- To professionalise the front-end programming discipline within the Netherlands
- An all-encompassing platform for many different initiatives
- Carried by the commitment of active members
Our profession
- Has slowly emerged in the past 15 years
- We develop for a medium (the Internet) that hasn't reached maturity yet
- Most professionals are self-taught
- We have organized ourselves primarily within companies and online communities
Why professionalization is needed
- We can learn a lot from each other
- We should sell ourselves better as a group to other professional disciplines and to clients
Raise your hands please
- HTML & CSS
- DOM & JavaScript
- AJAX
- Flash & ActionScript
- Any other...
The Guild's current focus
- Web standards
- Accessibility
Front-end web developers
- Create user interfaces
- Using markup- and scripting languages which are executed by a program on the end user's computer (and not on the server)
- Also called the web client
Front-enders are the linking pin
- Interaction designers
- Visual designers
- Back-end developers
- Testers
- Project managers
Front-enders are a unique group
- Only we understand how web clients work
- And how many different target audiences can be reached
Front-enders are fragmented
- Passionate specialists
- Focus on one or a set of related technologies
- Little knowledge of technologies that lie outside their own area of expertise
- Often hang around in one specific community only
The negative side effects of communities
- Groups define borders
- We-and-them-thinking
How broad-minded are front-enders?
- Love to discuss their favorite technologies
- Are often misinformed or only partially informed
- Sometimes too much polarisation and too less nuance
Current popular front-end technologies
- Common misconception that they directly compete with each other by nature
- Are rather complementary instead
- Web standards + browser plug-ins + AJAX = 100% what you can do with the web today
Web standards
- Offer a universal language to call upon browser functionality
- While avoiding compatibility problems, vendor lock-ins and patent-infringement issues
Plug-ins
- Designed to extend the functionality of web browsers and therefore expand the possibilities of the web as a whole
- Primarily compete with each other
AJAX
- Is not a technology
- But a de facto standard to exchange dynamic data
- Sometimes also used to indicate a collection of standardized and proprietary techniques that focus on web applications
AJAX as a progressive movement
- Focusing on what we can possibly do cross-browser today
- Pinpointing the problems with current web standards
- Influencing possible new web standards
A future prognosis
- Web standards will very slowy conquer ground on plug-ins
- Plug-ins will grow into new functional areas
- AJAX will slowly fade out and its features will become standardized
We can still learn a lot from each other
- One central message: Be as open minded as you can and learn from your fellow colleagues
Tasks for the Guild
- Create awareness that all front-end developers are a part of a shared professional discipline
- Create an open culture
- Avoid misconceptions
- Promote cross-pollination
Flash within the Guild
- Presentations
- Bring in the Flashers
- Recruit active members and gather proposals for activities
- Collaborate with the Adobe Usergroup Nederland
Adobe Usergroup Nederland
- Association with bi-monthly meetings
- Focuses on Adobe software and related technologies
- Started with focus on Flash
- Sponsored by multiple parties
Topics for presentations #1
- Standards-friendly Flash development
- Flash and accessibility
- Tool selection: when should you use web standards and when Flash?
Topics for presentations #2
- Introduction to Flash and ActionScript for non-Flashers
- Introduction to web standards for Flashers
- Hybrid solutions: how and why?
Topics for presentations #3
- Propose topics on the Guild's website
- Let members vote
- Let members post suggestions
