Ready or not, here I come…

I am following a lot of blogs via Google Reader, and have known for some time that I ought to start writing about my own adventures, rather than simply living vicarously through the myriad of other Flash blogs.

For anyone familiar with my book, you can imagine that this blog is going to be about equipment simulation. In particular, my views on equipment simulation. Since Flash has been an integral part of my work since 2000, the blog will also be about my experiences with Flash. And since I don’t have things on a day-to-day basis that compel me to write about equipment simulation, it will probably also include personal observations about being a technologist in a business world.

I have been running my company now for 8 years (can’t believe it), and doing many different types of projects around equipment simulation. In the 8 years, what strikes me is that while there have been great technical advances, the outlook for equipment simulation has yet to catch on the way I would have predicted when I started the company. It’s not a question of the technology–even Flash 4 was plenty capable to do remarkable things, and Flash 5 extended that ability–I think it is still the perception that simulations have to be expensive, and have to be very comprehensive. My message has always been that if you define your performance objectives carefully, you can make cost-effective and performance-effective equipment simulations.

Based on this revelation, I came up with an exciting idea that I have been pursuing for the past year or so, which I think will change the landscape of simulation on the Internet. I submitted a patent application and built a fully-functional prototype, and now I’m out shopping this around. Since it is super-secret, I can’t reveal it here (in case my mother, probably my only blog reader, is in a chatty mood with the neighbors).

Not surprisingly, I have been coding in Flash for awhile, and have adopted to its quirkiness in its way of doing things. Reading the blogs, I feel sometimes that I must be one of the last people on Earth coding in AS2/AS1, but reality sets in that perhaps the Flash blogosphere is more than a bit in front of the majority of users. I think that AS2/As1 will be around for a long time. That having been said, it’s clear that the future is AS3 (and beyond), and I do look forward to getting into it. I have a fair amount of legacy stuff (state engines, components, products) done in AS2, but I figure I’ll need to carve out time to make the leap to AS3 within the next 6 months. I am looking forward to it, though it is kind of daunting to think about upgrading all my libraries.

That’s it for now. I expect I’ll have a few blogging moments in the near future, as I develop my site here and talk about things I think are useful for those also interested in equipment simulation.