MindScriptAct

After analyzing 2 most popular framework both from syntax and performance point of view – I realized that both frameworks is not good enough for me. I work mainly with games and heavy applications that requires both code writing speed and code execution speed. With that knowledge I did what any programmer usually does in such situation – started my own project! where everything will be perfect! it will be fast! it will be comfortable to work with! and sun will shine all day long!

So I started with writing requirements…

Read more…

We all know that using framework in you application will hurt performance, and Flash has long and sad history of performance problems. I decided to find out how much exactly performance using framework costs us. As in last post I focus on 2 most popular frameworks: RobotLegs and PureMVC.

Run PureMVC tests           [Source code: PureMVCSpeedTest.zip]

Then you start creating bigger applications, or start working in bigger teams – using good framework becomes essential.
I spent good amount of time with 2 currently most popular AS3 frameworks – PureMVC and RobotLegs, and here I will compare pros and cons of both.

Generally both frameworks are very similar! :


RobotLegs and PureMVC Pros:

• will help divide your code is small units and wire them;
• will help standardize your code;
• based on MVC;
• can be extended to your needs;
• makes you focus on your fun app instead of focusing on solving architecture puzzles;
• have big and active communities;

RobotLegs and PureMVC Cons:

• hurts performance a bit;
• harder to debug “black box” framework code;
• couples implementation with framework;

…but RobotLegs: Read more…

I work with PureMVC - very popular and flexible framework .

Another tool that lets you enhance your work is FlashDevelop, it’s free, it has amazing templates and snippets to speed your work.

Now imagine what happens then those 2 meet each other. MAGIC HAPPENS!

There are couple of things that makes writing PureMVC not fun. That is:

• Creating proxies, mediators and commands. They must be written as framework demands it.
• Getting your mediators and proxies also annoys. It’s lot of typing – all this getting and casting…

Luckily with FlashDevelop file templates and snippets you totally remove the hassle of doing those not fun things in PureMVC!

Class templates: DerilsPureMvcTemplates.zip

this has to be unzipped to :  your “Application files” folder  - …\Templates\ProjectFiles

I will explain couple of things. That is special to my ‘style’ of using PureMVC.

• I name ‘notice’ for notification object. I use class “Note”,”ViewNote”, “DataNote” as constant holders. I wanted to separate those for quicker typing/code hinting. Just rename it in mediators and commands if you use something else.
• There are 2 variations of mediator and 2 variations of proxy, one with data/viewComponents sent to super class, and one that just keeps it locally. I rarely set it to super class, but sometimes it’s needed.
• I don’t bother casting data or viewComponent to it’s data type, and never will, I store them locally with needed type. Cast object every time you need to use it is a total nonsense, the only danger is setting different object for custom and super classes, but that’s easily fixed ovverideng setData/setVeiwComponent functions. What I did in templates.
• Code style: brackets on the line, package is not intended.

Snippets:

Get proxy(I named it “!retrieveProxy”):

var $(EntryPoint)$(CurWord):$(CurWord) = facade.retrieveProxy($(CurWord).NAME) as $(CurWord);

Get mediator(I named it “!retrieveMediator”):

var $(EntryPoint)$(CurWord):$(CurWord) = facade.retrieveMediator($(CurWord).NAME) as $(CurWord);

Usage scenario:

• ctrl+alt+ space to get class hinting
• write and pick class (mediator or proxy)
• use one or another snippet (I use keyboard shortcuts through macros)
• press delete to delete first letter.
• write deleted letter in lower case.

I create macro to use those snippets and map them on CTRL+ALT+1 and CTRL+ALT+2;

They look like this:

InsertSnippet|!retrieveProxy
InsertSnippet|!retrieveMediator

: initialize note constant quickly.
Depricated. I was using snippet to generate constants quicker:

$(CurWord):String = “$(CurWord)”

but lates FlashDevelop 4.0.0 RC1 does it automaticaly now.

Have fun.