At the end of 2006 I wrote in a blog that Flex programmers should sit tight, improve their skills and wait till 2008 – the year of their fame. The year of 2008 is here, and Flex people are in big demand.  Two years ago, Flex community was more of a ghetto where most of the Flex programmers knew each other, but situation is different now.  The number of Flex programmers is increasing, and this population evolves similarly to what I’ve seen in the Java camp in the past.

The main concern of any project manager is if there are enough people in the pool of Flex developers to staff the project.  Yes, there is a pool of Flex developers, but let’s look at the creature called “Flex Developer” under the microscope.

Presently, I work for two clients from different industries; both projects are redesigns of existing Java applications. One project has a small number of Flex screens but very serious requirements for the communication layer. The other project has lots and lots of screens with LCDS on the back. Both projects require three types of Flex personnel:

1. Flex GUI developers
2. Flex component developers
3. Flex architects

The first group is people who can create the view portion of the application. This is the easiest group to get into if you already have some programming language behind your belt. The rumors about high consulting rates plus work of educators and technical evangelists create an impression that working with Flex is easy – just drag and drop components on the screen, align them nicely and write the functions to process button clicks or row selections in the data grid. Sort of a Visual Basic of the Web. These skills are easy to obtain, and you can expect a crowd of people there, but do not expect high pay rates in this segment.  If something is easy to learn many people can master it, and savvy project managers either outsource this job to a third-part vendors or send their own developers to a one-week Flex training class.

GUI developers interact with Web Designers that come up with the look and feel of the screens, which can be presented as a wireframes created in Photoshop, some third-party tool or even in Flex itself. But even in the latter case, GUI developers should not start implementing screens until approved by a Flex component developer or an architect.

While this is a right way to start Flex career, you definitely should consider moving to the second group and become a Flex component developer.  This title is awarded to people who know everything that GUI developers know plus object-oriented and event-driven programming. Knowledge of design patterns helps, but be careful here. Especially it applies to people coming from the Java world. Do not abuse MVC. Think out of the box. A screen created by a Web designer has to be scrutinized and redesigned into a set of components that communicate with each other. Applying the Mediator pattern to the initial wireframe is a good start as I’ve described in this blog .

Also, keep in mind that even though the syntax of ActionScript 3 looks very similar to Java, it has provisions for dynamic programming and you might not need to create tons of well defined objects as in Java.

The third group of people knows everything the first two groups plus they can see a big picture. They know how to build the entire application, how to communicate with the mid tier, how to structure your project, and how to make communication between reusable components, views and the persistence layer the most efficient. Flex architect are people who’d never suggest using a framework for creation a simple Video player as done in this blog. You do not gain these skills after a week of training, but you build them on top of your prior experience in other programming environments and by constant studying.

Not every Flex developer can be profiled as a member of one of these three groups. In smaller teams, one person may wear two hats: a component developer and an architect.  If your team has decided to use one of the frameworks on top of Flex framework, you may wind up with a new type of team members that can be called framework coders.  In this case it is assumed that this XYZ framework provides a structure that will take care of inter-communication between components, and coders just need to put their model, view or controller objects into the right directories, buy popcorn, press the button “Play” and watch the movie. This may or may not work as expected, but you may find out about it later in the game. If you are not lucky and the film got stuck in the projector and caught fire well into the movie, get ready to ask for an extra budget for a new project called “Removal of the XYZ framework”, which again reminds me of a good old joke.

 A poor man comes to the rabbi complaining that his family has only one small room, many kids, and almost no money. The rabbi says, "Take all your money, buy a goat, and keep the goat in your room. Come back in a month."

"But, rabbi, we don't have enough space even for us," the man said
"Just do what I say," the rabbi replied.

A month later the man comes back complaining that the goat smells and breaks everything.

"Sell the goat and come back in a month," the rabbi tells him.
A month later the man comes back to the rabbi with flowers.

"Thank you, rabbi! We're so happy the goat is out, now we have more room and some money from selling the goat!"

If you are considering adding Flex to your set of skills, it’s still early in the game and you can join the fast growing Flex community. Decide which group of the Flex developers looks most appealing to you. Set a goal and go for it. Be what you can be.