When I look back at last year I think I did two things that really stretched me in professionally good way:
I’m certainly no master of either but having spent the last 6 months with my face buried in Visual Studio has really helped loosen some of my previous bias toward other languages and technologies. Plus, it has really done something to help my long standing problem of not having a solid, server side language in my toolbox to rely on. Granted, I can sling some php and coldfusion when needed but it usually starts with a few google searches to remember how to perform the most basic of functionality.
On the learning side, this year I feel like I want to learn a few new things. I don’t expect to be great at any of them but I do want to learn each and actually create some kind of product with each so that my experimentation is not just academic in nature. I also find that with a project or end goal I can really learn what a platform can offer. So, in no particular order, here is the list for 2010!
Silverlight
Now, I realize I’ve given silverlight some crap in the past, and I still think the platform could use a few more designers but the time to snub my nose at microsoft in this area has ended. I don’t believe that being exclusively a flash developer is going to cut it anymore and I can really start seeing a day where it’s just not going to matter which one is used. Silverlight is really compelling in some area’s – the tooling, which I’ll write about someday, include really top notch products like Visual Studio and Expression Blend 3. The file size seems to be dramatically small (3k for the sample video player that I made.) And, since I feel comfortable with C#, includes a development language that I can jump right into. There are some drawbacks for sure – one being that some of the simplest actions are incredibly verbose. Second being that player detection doesn’t appear to be a solved problem (I can’t tell you how many times I come across a silverlight example that is only a blank square on a page) but those things aside, Silverlight (version 3 in particular) can no longer be cast aside as a platform that just “doesn’t get it.” Also, the rate at which new versions are being released with entirely new feature sets is simply astounding – version 3 was released in the summer and 4 months later the beta for version 4 was released. Sweet Georgia Brown that’s fast! Anyway, I see a lot of good things happening in this area and it’s time to lay down arms and start seeing what can be done with this platform. Oh, did I mention sketchflow? I don’t know why this doesn’t get more press, it’s a slick little feature in Blend that allows you to rapidly prototype apps without really having to get into the guts of the design…
Jquery
I was going to say “javascript” but really, it seems like learning jquery will accomplish 100% of the learning I want to do in this area. It seemed my last foray into javascript ending with frustration with browser checking, poor debugging (aside for the hundreds of alert boxes I would use at any given time) and still accounting for the people who just had javascript turned off. It doesn’t seem to be that way anymore with the browser having robust javascript tools and the requirement that javascript be enabled for a site to work properly. Javascript is here to stay and not knowing it is like not being comfortable with HTML or CSS. All the difficulty has been abstracted away and now-a-days, programming web applications and not knowing how to wield jquery beyond a few simple actions is kind of a handicap. I don’t need to be a drag-and-drop using mofo here but I do need to be able to use it to whip out some front end goodness here and there to really make my applications for interactive and less kludgey. Plus, it’s the only item on the list here that doesn’t require a plugin. I need to have something to use when proprietary software is not an option. I’m finding all the polish that jquery can provide an app is invaluable and not every single action in an app requires a page load. Granted, I can use jquery but I’m just not comfortable with it yet and I really need to be.
Unity 3D
Hardware accelerated 3d content in the browser (or mac, pc, iphone, or wii) is not something to take lightly. The IDE is incredible (with a free version to boot), the rate at which content can be created is staggering, and you can literally sit down and make a game in a red bull fueled night of awesomeness. The thing about unity is that it’s the one thing on this list that does not compete with the others. It’s in a world of its own, sure there are examples of true 3d being done with the other platforms but nothing like this. No joke, I seriously want to make a fogbugz app with this thing that will show cases and workload in full 3d goodness.
Flash
Having said all that – this is not the year I give up on Flash. There is still A LOT of awesomeness in this product and the community supporting it is frankly incredible. I will admit, I’m finding myself becoming more and more of a flash purist – Flex is great but the focus on complexity (I’m looking at you cairngorm) and development frameworks rather than, well, just plain awesome stuff is kind of a turn off. Flex 4 is exciting but it’s not holding my interest like I thought it would and Catalyst is something I really just don’t even want to get into. In my Flash world I’d like to see less applications and more fun. Games, programmatic art, and animation are all things that drew me to flash and I’d like to revisit those initial feelings again. Last year, one of the most entertaining projects I worked on was a little game that didn’t really go anywhere but was a total blast to put together. I’d like to have more of those experiences this year – not just with Flash but with all of these tools. At this point, I’m certainly most comfortable with Flash though, and want to keep sharpening that edge throughout the year.
So, it seems like it’s going to be an awesome year for learning. I’lll post my updates here and if I crash your browser with one of my ridiculous experiments I apologize/warn you in advance. 
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