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I was out taking a training class the past two days. It was a beginner’s class in Flash MX 2004 Professional.

I took it because the graphic designer working with me wanted to take it. I’ve taken this class before, for the prior version of the software, Flash MX. In fact, I’ve taken more than one Flash class before.The first Flash class I took was an advanced class almost five years ago, which was by far my favorite, since it was taught by some young entrepreneur guy who sent out a mass e-mail as an “experiment” (his words) advertising this particular class. It’s still a mystery to me how he managed to get a mailing list with my name on it, since I’ve always been very selective about giving out this particular e-mail address. Regardless, that class was great primarily because whatever the course curriculum was, we more or less abandoned it. It helped that I happened to be obsessed with Flash at the time, and it really seemed to be the hot thing. I had already gotten my feet wet with it, so I opted to go straight for the advanced material. The class consisted of three people: the instructor, myself and the president of a design firm who was taking the class to learn how to better manage his developers. Good call. We ended up discussing all sorts of interesting real-life subjects, most of which were not even remotely related to Flash. I left that class feeling truly inspired.

A couple of years later, some associates of mine registered for an introductory Flash class, mainly so they could get up to speed and collaborate with me. I decided to tag along and see what they were being taught. This class was being offered by a more established organization, rather than one guy masquerading as an established corporate training center. The instructor seemed like a pretty cool guy, definitely knowledgeable, willing and able to answer more advanced questions without veering too far off course. I had a couple of issues with the approach taken at the time, which I brought up. He acknowledged those issues fairly. The fact is, Flash could be used for great things, provided people are exposed to the real power behind it, which, let’s face it, lies with scripting (rather, PROGRAMMING). Sure, the concept could easily scare some people off, unless it’s approached gently. However, avoiding the subject, I feel, is a crime. The result is a bunch of people playing with an expensive new toy to do simple animation.

This last class was also being offered by an established training center. It’s very well known in this region, so much so that it’s virtually synonymous with ‘training.’ Ask anyone around here if they’ve attended or would consider attending outside computer training, and the response is very likely to contain references to this place. This was my first real exposure to it. I won’t mention the name of the organization, as it might very well fill a need. In fact, I’m an avid supporter of ongoing training. Attending any sort of elective training immediately puts you in the very small percentage of people that takes any initiative whatsoever. So, I say, go for it. Lousy training is better than no training… usually. (I’m sure there are times when the opposite is true, but most of the time, I think the very act of opting for training is beneficial.) This instructor was much more by-the-book. Not once did he ask who anyone was, why they were there, nothing. In all fairness, I believe part of the problem lies in the software itself. I mean, it’s called “Flash MX 2004 Professional.” As if life isn’t confusing enough, Flash now comes in all sorts of flavors, each with its own subset of features. I’m pretty sure Flash MX 2004 Professional is the version with all of the features, but I don’t really care enough to look into it at this point. I’m hoping that with Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia, a little housecleaning will take place, and they’ll do something to straighten out the confusion, because right now, I’m not the least bit inspired to get back into Flash. Something seriously groundbreaking will have to take place to change my mind.

I asked the guy sitting next to me in the class what his deal was. He was busy sketching (on paper, not on his computer) an action figure, which he showed to me. It looked pretty good. It’s some character which is supposed to appear in some cartoon they’re planning on submitting to… whoever. He went on about how it’s really tough to draw a character in this particular position, since he’s supposed to be a superhero, and he doesn’t really have his chest all puffed out, he’s just kind of, you know, leaning back a little, sort of hunched over. I asked the guy where he worked. “I’m freelancing right now.” Images of his bedroom in the attic of his mom’s house wallpapered with Korn posters flew through my head. I asked him why he was taking this class. “I’ve been using Dreamweaver for a while now, so I figured I could build Flash websites.” Great. Just what we need, more websites that only people with high bandwidth connections and the latest Flash-enabled browsers could look at. Guaranteed that a couple of months from now, that website will be up there, complete with our superhero plastered all over it, still trying to fix his posture. Not once did the instructor try to discuss the logic (or lack of it) of getting into Flash with the intention of building full-blown websites with it. Our artist friend is probably hard at work right now, hung over from a rave, frantically trying to figure out how to make hyperlinks or something, getting really frustrated because those designer drugs wore off without releasing the part of his brain he needs to wake up and realize he’s wasting his precious youth holed up in his mom’s house. Another victim of Dreamweaver, yet another tool which has been terribly abused, notorious for creating a ton of extra code, meaning larger files, meaning pages which take longer to load. Sure, it makes it real easy to build basic websites. Too easy. Now there are tons of clowns building nasty, unmanageable websites. Just like Photoshop and Illustrator turned a bunch of spoiled rich computer nerds into so-called graphic designers, we can thank the Dreamweaver team in part for the proliferation of garbage out there on the Internet. Maybe it’s time to issue licenses to people who want to do certain things on their computers. Not software licenses, mind you, but operator’s licenses. You need one to drive a car, you should absolutely need one to have children, and you should need one to prevent you from polluting the Internet.

Most of the class was spent dealing with the drawing tools within Flash. Again, I’ll place part of the blame on the software. Flash has, in my opinion at least, the worst set of drawing tools imaginable. They behave unlike any drawing tools in any other graphics program. Once you learn how they work, you realize that they’re essentially worthless. I’m convinced to this day that whoever was responsible for implementing this set of drawing tools needs to undergo a comprehensive drug test and psych evaluation. Thankfully, I realized this early on, so whenever I needed to draw anything remotely complex, I used Illustrator, or something, ANYTHING, else. Importing graphics into Flash is trivial. The instructor himself acknowledged once or twice that a particular tool “shouldn’t do this, but it does,” or “I don’t know why they decided to do it this way, but that’s the way it is.” Not once did he suggest using any tool other than Flash. Of course not, since that wouldn’t fit neatly into the rigid curriculum. Instead, he spent almost the entire time trying to fit the proverbial square peg into the round hole. There were no complaints. I restrained myself, except for the occasional aggravated whisper to my graphic designer associate whenever I disagreed with the instructor’s approach. I didn’t publically assault the guy. He was just doing his job, I suppose, as soul crushing as that job might be.

We’re registered to take the next level of this class later this month, I think. Supposedly, they’ll get into scripting a little more, but I have my doubts. Maybe I’ll get to meet another batch of slacker artists with nothing better to do but draw action figures while their parents pay their rent. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

Tags: General, Scripting is Cool, Technology //