Show support submit a work of Public / Weblic Art in the comments to this blog post. We should respond using the Heart as an artistic symbol much in the same way Chicago had their CowParade. The adobe community should respond virally through the use of the web as a means to communicate. So I would encourage anyone to simply create a flash, html5, after effects, processing, context free art, whatever medium you want in response to Apple’s recent changes in heart in regards to thinking different. Post the art work on the web then comment back. Show the world what you created it and how you created it. Share your code / art / and source files because that is how the community progresses.

I think the Adobe community is primarily comprised of artist, designers, publishers, developers, etc.. In short I think they are the most creative people on the net. I would like to see what their unified response would look like. I think it would make for a really cool gallery. So create something and share it.

Why? Because it is really about choice. I pick the programs and place them on the machine. I use it however, I like. I do not need some foreign body that decides what software to use and how to use it. Is everyone sleeping or am I the only one that is intimidated of that concept? I don’t want too have some wizard of oz tell me what to put on my device or computer that is my decision for better or worse. I personally would like the option to have multiple operating systems on my cell phone if that is a possibility without voiding my warranty. I am the user, I am the owner, I pick what goes on and how not some governmental official or CEO. That is my concern why can’t you clarify your policy at least so can I not use the Corona SDK what if I want to use haXe? I believe that if someone owns the device the device owner should have the end all say on what goes on it and what doesn’t. Why can’t users have the choice to download and use things like Scratch?

“It doesn’t make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.” -Jackson Pollock

As the creators we should be able to pick whatever programming language etc and run it on the device. It is up to the consumer to choose what they want and what works out best for them on that device. Create something cool in the shape of a heart tell the community how you created it and share it.

Follow It

Oh, and the share buttons aren’t there for aesthetic value.

Once upon a time their was young Steve Jobs and he fearlessly forged ahead and helped shape the landscape of today’s personal computing. To tell you the truth Macintosh was for the most part based off of the work that was done at PARC ( Palo Alto Research Center ) at the time PARC was run by Xerox. The wonderful people at Xerox worked night and day on LISA which was the first GUI (Graphical User Interface) for personal computing. Some of the brightest luminaries in Computer history worked at PARC like Alan Kay the father of OOP. This was at a time though when most people had no idea that personal computing would explode. Most of the people that were employed at PARC were of course heavily influenced by Douglas Engelbart who ran the Human Augmentation Project at SAIL ( Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ). At this time in computing people believed that AI (Artificial Intelligence) would be everything because evidently the common man was believed to simply be too stupid to use computers in everyday life. You had a few mavericks at the time that of course did not subscribe to this ideology this group developed the first mouse and many of the interface devices we still use today in the late sixties at Stanford under the guidance of Engelbart. The interface that was developed at PARC had many of the same features that Engelbart’s Human Augmentation project had created the precusor to the LISA interface and at this time Piracy really wasn’t considered a crime. At this time you also had people in the valley that were bright enough to pick up on the fact that the rate of Computing Power was exponential and it was doubling every two years this of course later became known as Moore’s Law. Douglas Engelbart understood this fact and predicted things like the pocket library which is now pretty much your smart phone or iPad. Steve Jobs has been extremly successful in making his childhood dreams a reality. This of course only came about with failure and constant work, ambition to push things further and further and he has radically changed the history of personal computing for the most part for the betterment of all mankind. Although Steve Jobs beginning was literally taking LISA’s beginning from Xerox and refitting it to the Macintosh. Simply because the people at Xerox had no idea of the caliber of intellectual property they owned at the time sad really. It was somewhat shady business moves like this that literally spawned personal computing.

Recently though Apple has made in my mind some rather bothersome decisions. I fully understand them not wanting to include Flash as a part of their ecosystem. This definitely comes from the need to dominate their platform and insure the sales of apps on the iTunes store. If everyone had the flash player would so many apps actually be sold?? I don’t believe they would be. Up until now Apple devices have had relatively low computing power but this is no longer the case with the iPad. Lots of developers have banded together and created some really cool tools out their like Unity3D, Corona SDK, Appcelerator, etc which by the way really creates a considerable amount of those casual games you play on your iPhone. Recently Apple announced they would not allow 3rd party tools to compile to the iPhone / iPad. This is extremely troublesome for developers. I will be honest I love technology and for the most part I consider myself technologically agnostic as in I don’t really believe that one Technology is the complete answer. I am completely for learning new technologies, languages etc. I like Objective-C have played around with it a little and I also own several books on it. I also like other technologies like Flash and when Adobe mentioned they were bringing the ability to compile directly to the iPhone / iPad I was of course elated. The reason why is quite simple I want to utilize existing skills and compile to as many platforms as possible with a minimal amount of rework to get applications to work on a given device and honestly when it comes to this Adobe has that game down! The flash community as a whole have spawned some of the coolest user interfaces ever put together period. As a whole this community has really helped shape the future of computing and User Experience. Many of the features of the current JavaScript libraries have been around in the flash community for years. I mean you have to kind of laugh to yourself when the JavaScript community mentions something like easing these techniques were really defined well in the flash community and all you have to do to see this is simply do a Google search on Easing Equations you will find Robert Penner at the top. I love both technologies and I really don’t want to be in one of those childish conversations where to whiners, whine about which one is better and which one will when over. It is a silly argument to have in the first place. As a developer it is important to have knowledge of both and not let your opinions cast doubt on one or the other platform. HTML5 will advance to where flash is now but when it does flash will be well beyond where it is today. So I guess I am upset at Apples decision to really kind of flip the bird to the development community and tell everyone they can only use their tools to create content or they have to use HTML5. To be honest with you, I have been thinking about using HTML5 simply to escape the whole Apple approval process. I will definitely be putting my weight around HTML5 and Flash for all the other Mobile platforms. The people at Adobe are not lazy Steve. They worked extremely hard to put together something that they believed would help your iTunes app store and consumers as well and it is not just the people at Adobe you have alienated by this decision.

With the people at Apple making decisions like this you can’t help but wonder how far they will reach to control content. I believe that content is up to the user hopefully they won’t extend policies like this to their bookstore. Really the fact of the matter is people will purchase these devices in mass numbers because it was created by Apple and Apple does have a killer marketing strategy and team. They won’t so much think about the lack of freedom or the buyer lockin to the iTunes ecosystem. In many ways their ecosystem for entertainment is ridiculously far ahead of the competitors. In short it is nothing short of a Monopoly you may not see it yet but it is definitely there. On the other hand their moves may force the development community to swing to Microsoft and Google the HP Slate doesn’t look half bad. I know, I will be developing for the iPhone and iPad I was just in the hopes to speed up my process I guess that looks like it is no longer an option. I will in fact have to recreate the whole experience just for that device.

I wonder if the young Steve Jobs would do what he is doing today?

Well on a side note next weekend I might be posting code for a Twitter Spider created with Silverlight. Silverlight is cool! I am of course looking forward to the Windows 7 phone and Visual Studio 2010!

Oh and last time I mentioned RayCasters Bruce Jawn released his source code for Alchemy compiling of this RayCaster you can find the code here! On his site you can find some cool examples of how to use Alchemy for Flash Development.

As technology progresses we will see more and more people using thin-client systems again.  They will store data in the cloud and mobile devices will proliferate and rapidly change the landscape of personal computing small is the new big.  Our cell phones will morph into powerful desktop like devices(oh and this is predictable just study Moore’s_law) only they fit in our hand and can go with us.  Our input devices will all change we will have small projectors on our cellphones they will project screens and pusedo keyboards that we can place on any surface.  Competition will drive new innovations and the consumer will win.  It won’t be just Microsoft vs. Apple it will be all out war for Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, and Oracle all competing creating new products and new markets.  Social Networks are the new email the way we think of email has already changed most people communicate on a variety of social networks email etc..  Print is dead stick a fork in it already.  Mobile books will only be improved and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Apple actually does come out with a revolutionary tablet in the next year and utilize iTunes to also sell subscriptions this will kill magazines, I don’t know about you but I think they take up too much space.  I want one device clean smooth organized (my wife will like that too because my books/magazines take up more than one room).  The world of broadcasting will drastically change when Youtube comes up with a subscription service your TV area all ready on their way to being big thin clients.  Check out what adobe is working on with their Digital TV – Flash initiatives.  The mobile internet is the future people won’t need these stogy old big machines!  Everyone has a cellphone think of the traffic that will generate on the web.  Traffic on the web will go through the roof in the next few years.  When you speed up communication you speed up innovation and the next few years will be exciting!  If you think the internet has caused some disruptive changes for business models you haven’t seen anything yet.  Our audience is not even born yet.

While were on the subject matter of making small the new big why not throw in old is the new new?  Yes I too love oxymoron’s and non-sequitur’s. I would also like to point out a trend here the big players like Adobe, Microsoft, and Google are making it easier for developers to port existing code over to their run-time environments.  Adobe has a project called Alchemy and if you haven’t played around with it I would recommend doing so.  Alchemy will allow you to take existing C/C++ code and convert it to swc (compiled ActionScript libraries).  It is wickedly powerful you will notice below I actually have a compiled version of Doom running in flash.  This was made possible by Mike at New Grounds he ported over the code and currently has it hosted on GitHub for download.  The only thing you have to do to build it is install and configure Alchemy!  Ok well who cares your porting old stuff and placing it on the web, so what.  That’s just it!  Its on the web and running on a website where anyone anywhere with an internet connection can take advantage of it.  If it is not blantely obvious let me point out the fact that in 10 years most people will not work on a desktop all of their applications will be cloud based and available to mobile devices the glue that holds everything together will be the internet, not the operating system.

BabbelFish for Code? I think the future fracturing of mobile devices and operating systems will lead to the need for more tools that allow developers to choose their language of choice and then simply export to the specific platform this makes more sense.  Developers and Businesses will want one code base and they want they will want the ability to target whatever platform they want in the mobile area without having to hire tons of highly specialized people for one project.  Developers will also like being able to port their projects to different platforms!  I believe the compiler gurus will open things up for the rest of the developers.  Check out projects like haXe and jsc.  Their are other projects similar popping up all over on Code Run you can convert C# to JavaScript.  I also find it interesting that both ActionScipt3 and C# will be able to compile directly to the iPhone.

As things move forward we will do all our work in the cloud.  If you scan the web you will start to see web IDE being created here are a few ingesting projects Code Run, WonderFL,Appcelerator, and Bespin.  I really like the idea of social coding it is definitely an idea that intrigues me.  Just think if the IDE was in the cloud you wouldn’t need to download all those pesky code libraries they would all be there already.  Projects would update at a much quicker rate than they currently do. 

Click here to launch Doom in Flash!

This will eventually be incorporated into my new portfolio.  So as you can see I have been very busy. I am also excited to utilize FlashCS4 I love the fact that adobe  has released Pixel Bender.  This will make creating filters a snap and you will be able to use them in After Effects, Photoshop, and Flash.  Adobe has also been working on Flash Catalyst formerly Thermo.  I am also excited to see a new application in the flash family.  I believe this will enable designers to easily port their photoshop documents to Flex without having to write any code(which I am sure they will like).  It will also be nice for developers because it is built to directly integrate into the Flex workflow.   Another development worth mentioning is SWX has released an AS3 Version. So that completely rocks and it makes writing mashups for flash a snap:)  I will be making some of these items flash components and selling them.

PaperVision3D Picasa Album Reader Alpha
MediaRSS AS3 Code Library
Pixel Bender Tutorial

Recently Adobe announced Alchemy they have been talking about it for years but it is now out on their labs site for download. So what is Alchemy it enables the developer to utilize any c/c++ code that is open source and automagically convert it into something more useful an SWC file that can be utilized in flash! So you can now execute the code in the Flash Player and this of course rocks. You have already seen people utilizing it and creating games with it like Doom in flash. I think is well worth looking at some of those old c/c++ projects over on sourceforge and experimenting with Alchemy.

Now to be fare they are not the only company to think of a solution like this. If you look at silverlight you will find that you can utilize the Dynamic Language Runtime(DLR) and this allows developers for the most part to pick and choose their favorite programming language and work with it like ruby, java, or php you get the idea. At first I must admit I really hated the idea of Silverlight but over the years and after studying the new release I am sold. I have been working on applications for a new version of my portfolio and I will be utilizing both Silverlight and Flash. One thing I might add about the dynamic language runtime is it is different from Alchemy. Why? The dynamic language runtime allows developers to utilize multiple languages in a project when it is done it is sent to the compiler and becomes bytecode. When you use alchemy you are using LLVM it actually converts the code into AVM2 bytecode. I would suggest reading Nicolas Cannasse’s blog it will give you a clearer perspective at what Alchemy actually is and what it means. I am anxious to see what Alchemy can do and as a result I have installed in on a virtual Ubuntu machine. One thing that is nice about the DLR is you can mix different languages into the same project you can also share the same variables across multiple languages while this may not be good for large projects and could generate unmanageable code I can see it coming in handy in a pinch. One thing I might add about silverlight is I believe that Microsoft is going to port lots of .Net to run in silverlight.

So what platform do you develop for? I say both. Everyone loves flash and flash will be on ARM devices soon. It already has Android and Windows Mobile devices. Adobe engineers will make it work! For now their seems to be no sign of Apple’s iPhone or iPodTouch devices utilizing flash which really sucks for the user but is evidently good for Steve Jobs. It seems apple is destined to make the same mistakes over and over again. What developers really want is to create something once and run it anywhere and everywhere. Silverlight will soon go mobile too and I would expect them to run into the same issues on apple devices which is a shame for the consumer I guess they will be able to sell more iTunes app this way though.

Thoughts on Alchemy it took sometime to install I had to change the default config file that Alchemy came with for Ubuntu it was looking for the syslinks for LLVM in the wrong spot in short just change the location in the config file than run it also make sure you have all your paths correct in .bashrc once you have these you should be good to go some of the information on the labs website is maybe a little difficult to interpret. I also found these links (Alchemy has arrived eventually! And Solution for nothing on Linux) and they helped solve my problems. If anyone want I can post my .bashrc and config just let me know.

In other news:
Processing is now out of Beta!
You can find books on Processing here.

Links of Interest:
Alchemy on Adobe Labs
Understanding Adobe Alchemy
Nicolas Cannasse Weblogs on Adobe Alchemy
Doom – Quake – How to edit Quake Code in Visual Studio
X2O Project
Ensemble
Flash Goes Mobile