The random utterances of David Arno

Yesterday I was adding some member variables (fields) to a simple AS3 Data Transfer Object (DTO). The existing fields were all marked private and there were public get/ set methods (properties) defined for them that did nothing but read and write to the fields. I really dislike using properties in this way. I can understand why one would do so in Java, as it lacks true properties and instead has getter and setter methods. Changing from a field to those methods changes a class’ interface, which necessitates rewriting any code that uses them. In AS3 though, this problem doesn’t occur. Read more

The BBC have released the iPlayer app for Android phones. It uses Flash, so only works on phones with Android 2.2 or later and the Flash player installed. Restrictions like this are of course the price we pay for fast-paced progress and innovation. Plus I have an Android phone with 2.2 and Flash on it, so it works for me. The phrase “works for me” is said with huge reservation though Read more

Writing some code today, I realised what I’d really like with type-safe languages is for them to be “type context aware”, which is a term I think I just made up. I’ll explain it with a code example. Read more