Alias

A few days ago, I casually weighed in on the “new name for AMFPHP” debate - I suggested the name “INFRNO”, which was meant to be a reference to the numerous recursive acronyms already in use in various open source/free software projects- INFERNO’s not Flash Remoting, No. To my surprise, it has gained some traction, and it seems to have inspired people, as there’s already several logo designs for it.

Anyway, opinion is not totally unanimous on this, however, as a a few people aren’t so thrilled to change the name at all. As far as I understand though, the name *is* going to change, as the PHP people don’t like other people using their brand. So if you care one way or the other, send an email to:

name_vote@amfphp.org

And tell them what name you want. I think the candidates so far are: INFRNO, Plash, amph, and Falcon. I’m sure they’d be open to other suggestions.

Rob Bateman, who works for the BBC, (who worked on the BBC’s excellent US Elections Map) posted this on the flash components mailing list today:
“The flash development
team at bbc news interactive (which i am a part of) is planning to
release the component set we currently work with on our interactive
content. This will be on external website(s) such as macromedia
exchange, but the release will be under GPL license, and will cost
absolutely nothing!! Not only that, but we will be supplying FULL
flash documentation and diagrammatic uml of ALL classes and
structures, again, completely free of charge. The component set is
called smx, and feature highlights include Proper Re-skinning (ie. all
components, all elements, all from the same base classes, all from
library objects that follow the same rules, etc etc), Properly
Functioning Livepreviews, compatible with Flash 6 AND Flash 7,
Optimisations to provide the same functionality of mx components in ~a
quarter of the filesize with ~double the speed, DataComponents like
XmlLoader and NodeBinder that are much more streamlined than their mx
counterparts whil retaining the same functionality, and useful
standard components such as tabpanel and slider that are still
(amazingly) omitted from the basic mx set.
“

You can read the full text of Rob’s email here. It sounds like a very promising prospect, and knowing the BBC, there’s going to be lots of good documentation. I wonder though - if you haven’t paid your TV licence, can they stop you using these components?

It seems that the console games industry is on the brink of meltdown due to burnout staff working practices - EA (NASDAQ: ERTS) being the most prominent offender, and the potential recipient of a potential class action lawsuit. This comes in the wake of numerous reports of a corporate culture of abuse, burnout, death march development cycles, and gross management incompetence, according to both firsthand accounts and anonymous rants by family members of developers.

There is talk of forming a Game Developer’s union, not to mention countless op-ed pieces on how to turn out a games project on schedule without losing half your developers in the process. I don’t know how, but I think it’s definitely time for something to change. I’ve eperienced long working hours on both games and web projects, and it’s true that working later and harder on projects is a fact of life in creative industries - however, EA’s alleged approach of a scheduled, unending crunch has got to be a sure way of destroying some of the games industry’s best talent. If I had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, that career in carpentry would start to look damned attractive…

I, for one, am not going to be buying any EA games in the foreseeable future - and it’s been a long time since I’ve used any of their graphics applications…