Interview with Lucian Beebe
Product Manager of Flash

Hunter S. Thompson, legendary Gonzo journalist, once wrote "the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash". Certainly, since it first appeared, Flash has redefined animation, both on and off the Web, evolved and matured, added a scripting language, the ability to make real applications with real data, and in the latest incarnation, has split into two separate products. This brief but luminous history has inspired a lot of legends, and a few myths:

• Flash is a sinister plot by Macromedia to kill the browser and therefore control the Internet. False - see below.
• Flash was first called "Smart Sketch". True - see The History of Flash.
• Flash is currently used by the Immortal Priestesses of Atlantis, now resident on Saturn, to provide the visuals at Intergalactic full moon parties on Neptune. Unconfirmed.

ED felt it his civic duty to track down Lucian Beebe, the Product Manager of Flash at Macromedia, and seek out the truth because, in the MX Files, the Truth Is Out There.

ED: Lucian, this is a great Intergalactic full moon party! Tell me - how did you get to be the product Manager for Flash?

LB: I have been a product manager for Flash for about 9 months now. I split the duties with Forest Key. I focus on Flash for technical users such as Rich Internet Applications and he focuses on the design side. I came to Flash through software development, not through design, so that split makes sense. Before Macromedia, I was with Rational Software, now IBM. Rational focused on providing all the tools developers need to be effective developers, such as modelling, testing, requirements management, and source control tools.

I hope to bring that level of maturity to Flash development

ED: What are your aims as the Flash PM?

LB: I hope to bring that level of maturity to Flash development so developers used to having a lot of supporting tools will find Flash an efficient and effective place work develop software.

ED: What are your current favourite Flash sites?

LB: Too hard to answer! In general, its hard not to like the sites selected by the Flash Forward Flash Film Festival. Those are consistently my favourites. But of course, I tend to be more focused on the software development side of the house, so am more attracted to the applications people are building.

ED: What does your day-to-day job entail?

LB: Lots and lots of e-mail! Seriously, I do get a lot of input from our user base through the message boards, web sites, and direct e-mail. I know a lot of times people question whether Macromedia is listening, but we are always out there reading. Sometimes we don't reply as much as we should to make that clear to people, but we are always reading. The product manager's job at Macromedia is to help translate new 60% of the team came from a designer backgrounddirections in the community and in the market into product requirements and make sure that we have an end-to-end workflow that makes sense. We also review all the marketing messages to make sure that we are putting out a consistent message and one that is actually supported by the product. Luckily, I am well supported by a great group of developers so they help me incredibly with that task.

ED: How many developers are on the Flash team?

LB: We don't talk specifically about the number of people a lot, but there are a few dozen people who work on Flash, and another team on the Flash Player.

ED: Do any of them come from a design background?

LB: Just guessing at the distribution, I would guess that 60% of the team came from a designer background and 40% are more properly classified as developers.

ED: If you weren't doing this job? What would you be doing?

LB: I suppose there are two answers to this question. If I no longer had to work, I'd be sailing off all my favourite beaches. If I still had to work, I would still want to work on software development in some fashion or other.

ED: Why is Flash better than SVG?

Flash is powerful and exciting because it is everywhereLB: It's on 98% of every desktop out there, and is gaining ground on cell phones, PDAs, and other Flash is powerful and exciting because it is everywhere. Its devices. Beyond that, Flash has matured beyond just being an animation tool. With its ability to connect to data, manage local record sets, and integrate with a comprehensive set of components, its taking people way beyond what SVG can. Users are voting with their mice and SVG hasn't gained much ground.

ED: How do you feel about the recent Eolas plug-in trial that Microsoft has lost? What are the implications for Flash developers - and for Macromedia?

LB: Rather than elaborate on this, I'll suggest that everyone check out www.macromedia.com for all the details. We have jumped on this fully and have documented everything people will need to be successful. We'll keep updating that information as things change or evolve.

ED: On to the new products -- our editors and author teams have been playing around with Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Pro 2004 now for a few months, and we're all really impressed with some of the new stuff - especially the new Extensibility Architecture and the JS API. Do you have a personal favourite out of all the new features?

LB: My top three are the new data connectivity features, screens, and the JSAPI. A close runner up are all the components in the new architecture. The JSAPI is a huge advancement, and as people have started publishing examples of good extensions, its really starting to matter.

ED: How and why was the decision made to split Flash into two products? Discussions with Flash community members suggest there's still confusion regarding the targeting of these products because the division is neither beginner/advanced or designer/developer. Do you feel that the products were released as you originally envisioned, and what do you foresee in the future for the product split?

LB: The product split has been hotly discussed in the In this release, you see us splitting the product between the traditional Flash user and the more advanced Flash users. We will probably continue that trend in the future.forums since we released. Splitting the product allows us to target users better both in this release and in the future releases. In this release, you see us splitting the product between the traditional Flash user and the more advanced Flash users. We will probably continue that trend in the future. We are just beginning to see how that will play out longer term, so we're watching the community to see how to tune this as we go along. Were the products released as we envisioned? Yes, things worked out as planned. Our biggest concerns were that people would think that Flash MX 2004 was a dumbed down version of Flash and Flash MX Professional 2004 we the "real" version. We're glad to see that people are recognizing that Flash MX 2004 is the version of Flash MX taken forward, and Flash Professional is the new, top-of-the-line version.

ED: Many websites and blogs are requesting feedback regarding the new product releases, even a survey. How do you feel the response has been to Flash, and what does Macromedia plan to do with the feedback?

LB: Recently, we put out an Updater for Flash MX 2004. This was in direct response to the community who said they love the new product but need some bug fixes. This was a big step for us as we would rather spend our time building new features for the next release. But by listening to the community, we think we have done the right thing in taking some time to fix the bugs being reported. So, yes, we do listen, we do take the guidance people provide. The Flash community is incredibly important to us not only as a customer base, but as an advisory board.

ED: The new Flash Player 7 seems mind-blowingly fast compared to the Player 6. Can you briefly explain to us, in layman's terms, how your development team achieved this amazing enhancement?

LB: No, I can't! I think they reverse charged all the You can never be too rich, too beautiful, or run too fast ...electrons or something. There are a lot of amazing people on that team and they fought performance all the way down to the last bit and byte. As a result, most customers are reporting between 2 and 10 times faster performance. But we're not done. You can never be too rich, too beautiful, or run too fast ...

ED: I know of many designers who use both a Mac and a PC, and with Flash MX we could use both PC and Mac versions when we bought a single license--which was a really nice bonus for the pro designer who tests and works on both platforms! However, now with MX 2004 we can only use one operating system with each license--have you guys received any negative feedback over this, or is it just a couple of our grumpy friends?

LB: We have heard a few complaints about this. Just as we listened to the bug reports and took them seriously, we are doing a full review of our license to see whether we can do anything for people there. I think we are already ahead of the industry on the leniency of our license, but we may be able to make a few more changes. Keep your ears open ...

ED: I heard a few Flash MX users, particularly those from a design background, already panicking about ActionScript 2.0, "Oh no, I'm gonna have to re-learn everything I've spent a couple years learning!" Have you got any calming advice for these guys? As far as I can see, AS2.0 is specifically geared towards making is easy for Java and .NET developers to move into Flash development, and perhaps if you want to start creating robust RIAs. AS2.0 compiles down to AS1.0 at runtime anyway, right?

LB: This is a very important point. We still support ActionScript 1.0. It is still very important. It will ActionScript 2.0 is a wonderful advancement for people and reaction has been universally greatcontinue to be in the future. There are a lot of people for whom, and a lot of projects for which ActionScript 2.0 is complete overkill. For example, most of the time when I am throwing something together quickly, I'll just use ActionScript 1.0. Its just fine for a simple, non-architected project. But, when the time comes to build a significant piece of software, especially where design efficiency and architecture matter, I will chose ActionScript 2.0. ActionScript 2.0 is a wonderful advancement for people and reaction has been universally great. But choose the easiest way to build and maintain your content.

ED: I am curious about the future of using dynamic data and services in Flash. Will Macromedia continue to support Flash Remoting MX as a lightweight, quick and low-bandwidth solution, further develop built-in SOAP support, or move on to something entirely new to supplement the built in features?

LB: With this version of Flash MX Professional 2004, we introduced a whole data architecture founded on connector components, local record sets, a sophisticated data resolution capability, and all held together with data binding. That very much represents our future direction and we are building off that architecture as we speak. People saw that great infrastructure and got really worried that it spelled the end of Remoting. This is not the case. We have Remoting. When we planned for this release, we asked ourselves what more people need. Remoting is great because it's the fastest way to move data from the server to the client. But it doesn't appeal to people who won't install more software on their server or who want to use industry standard protocols only. For those situations, we build the WebServiceConnector and XMLConnector components. Those components allow people alternatives to Remoting. So, no, we are not discontinuing Remoting. We will integrate it into the architecture we started in the MX 2004 release and will target maintaining the current APIs so your current Remoting projects will continue to work.

ED: We have quite a few friends from cartooning backgrounds (online and TV) who are starting to feel a little abandoned now that Flash is heading off in the direction of hardcore app development. Obviously this area is much more lucrative to Macromedia, and in many ways is a natural evolution of the product, but what do you say to the artists out there who haven't had any real new features since the Free Transform tool enhancements in MX, and are still craving a life-like skeleton tweening tool, etc.?

LB: Well, I say, how about a life-like skeleton tweening tool? We are experimenting with one "back in the lab." ED: What do you say to the artists out there who haven't had any real new features since the Free Transform tool enhancement?

LB: We are experimenting with a life-like skeleton tweening tool back in the lab" Can't say whether it will see the light of day at this point, but a lot of fun to play with the prototypes. Flash moved more towards the development side partially to attract new users, but also to give Flash designers room to grow. Let me give you an example. Last week I did a web seminar to show people how to use the new data connectivity components. I focused on three use cases: data-aware design, simple applications that manage data locally, and complex applications that fully round trip data back to the server. You know what people wanted to hear about the most? Simple, data-aware designs. Designers can now integrate live data feeds into their designs to extend them to new levels. Imagine ads that say "Today's interest rate is: X," where X is coming directly from the latest information off the server. Seeing data integration as a "developer" feature is too bad because its as much about extending designers to create better, more capable design than it is about only providing to developers. The Flash design community is growing up. People who came into Flash to make simple motion graphics are now scripting incredible interactivity. These "developer" features are growing everyone's capabilities and that's good for everyone in the Flash community.

ED: What question should we have asked you, but didn't? What's the answer?

LB: I am often asked about the future of Flash. The answer varies with the context. But in the context of people trying to sort out the good, bad, and indifferent of the new features, I can say a few things here. The The new Flash extensibility architecture (JSAPI) offers Flash users a fundamental new future. Flash will be able to do things none of us can even imagine. Its going to be amazingnew Flash extensibility architecture (JSAPI) offers Flash users a fundamental new future. This future is one where Macromedia has opened Flash and anyone with a good idea for a new feature can just build that feature and plug it in. Flash will be able to do things none of us can even imagine. Its going to be amazing and it definitely qualifies as one of the futures of Flash. Another future of Flash is the designer/developer continuum. Though we talk about designers versus developers a lot, we don't mean to say that you must sign up to be one or the other or that we will force you to choose. We understand that everyone spans a range including some design and some development. We also understand that most people work on teams and need to integrate with more developer-oriented people or more design-oriented people. We are looking really hard at how to focus Flash on the particular designer/developer range you cover and let you integrate with those on your team who cover other parts of that spectrum. This will occupy a lot of our design time for the next release.

ED: Is Flash going to replace the browser?

LB: No, Flash is not going to replace the browser. Macromedia Central will reduce people's dependency on the browser and Flash is making the browser a significant place to build and use applications and rich media design. But the browser as a container probably isn't going away for some time. Eventually, I believe we will see a return to desktop applications that are Internet aware, similar to what we saw with Napster and now hundreds of similar applications. That will change the nature of how we work with the Internet, but Flash will be there too. For example, Central is part of that strategy and shows what's possible in that type of application.  

ED: What question are you glad we didn't ask you - and what's the answer?

LB: Well, that seems like a bit of a cheat! Well, you got most of my least favourites in there!

ED: Thanks Lucian! Now, let's boogie!

Thanks to Sham Bhangal, Jen deHaan, Peter Elst, Keith Peters, and Todd Yard for help with the interrogation.