Research continues…

Latest news:  Research continues

Wait. I think I covered that in the post title. I guess I believe it bears repeating.  I digress, so let me get back to the update.  (Note to self, consider deleting this paragraph. It is fluff !)

(History lesson about me: I have been coding / programming since my teens. I took to it quickly, and learned a variety of full programming and scripting languages.  (I can still code in COBOL, but I’d rather not.) During that time, I found several options that worked well for me and I stopped taking on new ones.  Then, the Internet arrived.  I’ve been able to get my programs to work within the environs and work along with them, so I still had no need to learn new languages. I simply adapted my skill-set.  I am not a programmer by trade, but I kept my skills sharp with various activities.)

I spent a good portion of my week (when not working) studying more about web app development and such.  I started off with a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, and was fairly open to ideas on how to achieve it.  …with one exception: I didn’t want to use Flash.  My reasoning was pretty solid at the time: it’s proprietary; it’s not an open standard; it won’t work on iPhone / iOS, which happens to be pretty popular, I hear; did I really want to study and learn a limited-use language; speaking of limited, it’s for graphics-based and arcade-style games; and, of course, it was “Just Flash”.

Mea culpa.  (Tr: I’m guilty / my fault.)

So I got curious and went to Google (my long-time friend), and asked about Open Source alternatives to Flash.

Hello, Flex!

Flex is Open Source, based on a standard, works on iOS, is being used to create Rich Internet Applications, and is far from being limited to games.  …oh, and it creates Flash executable files in the .SWF format.  (Thanks, Google! Sorry, Flash!)

To summarize, I’ve been learning the basics of Flash / Flex, after covering PHP in some depth, too.  Also, I strengthened my weakened database skills and built up a good familiarity with MySQL.

I can seriously see building Game of Slaves in Flex / Flash / ActionScript 3. With the tools provided, and my creativity, I can build the primary engine and spend more of my time focusing on content.

– Cam