Merapi is not just a volcano on the island of Java... it is a technology that bridges the AIR / Java gap.

Implementing complex behaviors/relationships requires flexible structures/types to make things happen... which is where covariant return types come into play.

Does a particular feature have you 'living large' in for-loops? Do you spend more time in the day typing 'for each (blah... blah..' than you do brushing your teeth in the morning? If you answered yes to these questions... implementing a specialized collection may help.

For anyone that is interested / active on LinkedIn – there is a group for Flex coders in the US.

LinkedIn: Flex US Developers

So... I just ran across this article. It's been around for a while - but it's worth the read if you haven't already seen it.

Ah, the irony! Microsoft says Safari isn't safe on Windows

Passing any kind of data in HTTP headers can be a tricky business - especially for Flash based technologies.

As developers gain more experience in Flex - it is natural that they will want to squeeze more and more out of the mxmlc and compc compilers. Here is a bucket-load of settings originally posted by Vadim Melnik which seems to have fallen out of grace with Google - or maybe he just changed the link. At any rate...

The 'Problems' tab in Flexbuilder/Eclipse can be very helpful when trying to zero-in on baddies in your code. However, certain types of errors can flood the tab... making it more difficult to keep things straight.

Flex isn't a silver-bullet in software development... it has its 'uglies' and its 'pretties.' The trick, as developers, is to learn to juggle a handful of technologies to arrive at a stable / cohesive product while maintaining a clear view of emerging trends.

So... I got all excited about this new feature in Flex 3 and started working on a blog post only to find that Doug McCune had already covered the ground. A nice read about a very useful feature.

http://dougmccune.com/blog/2007/06/11/imagesnapshot-class-in-flex-3-sdk/