I just got back from my trip up to San Fran, for Adobe MAX 2008, and I wanted to post the source code for my session on Data Visualization.   My preso was geared to target a broad spectrum of developer levels from beginner to advanced.  I have four code demos that cover off on data structures for charts, data formatting, chart styling/appearance, and chart interaction.   Each demo walks through a progression from simple to advanced concepts and code.   From the session feedback survey feedback I received today, it appears that audience found the presentation helpful and valuable as I had relatively high marks, and few people told me it was one of the better presentations at the conference.   To everyone who attended, thanks for coming, and I hope you got some value out of it.

Here is the link to the source files.

Overall I found the conference as a whole to be a bit of a let down at the content level.  It was great to see all the familiar faces and catch up with people, but I didn’t have the same feeling of excitement that I had last year in Chicago.  It seemed this year that Adobe was doing a lot more product refinement than pushing any real new boundaries.   Flash Catalyst (Thermo) has not really changed (just gotten further along) than what we saw in Chicago last year, and overall the MAX “Sneaks” were rather blah… ActionScript on the server to render HTML… c’mon guys we were doing that kind of stuff with .asp 10 years ago.   I sure hope MAX last year was not the apex of Adobe under the guidance of Bruce Chizen, and that now we are starting a decline.    I also realize that Adobe/Macromedia has pushed so many boundaries over the last couple of years that as a company it is now in a position where it needs it platform technologies to cross the chasm from early adopters to a more mainstream market, which for people like me becomes boring – because I always want to work with new technologies and be that early adopter level.

Monday November 17th is the official start date for Adobe MAX.   I will speaking at several sessions throughout the conference.

On Monday I will be speaking with Juan Sanchez about Degrafa at the 360|MAX unconference.  The presentation will be from 4:00pm to 5:30pm.

Then Monday night at 9:30 I will be doing a Birds of a Feather session with Juan, speaking again about Degrafa.

Wednesday at 3:30pm I will be doing my Flex Data Visualization presentation.  Adobe asked me to do this preso and to try and serve as wide an audience as possible from Flex rookie to advanced Flex developers.  60 minutes is not a lot of time so I will be moving quickly and I have put together 4 new code demos where I walk through code from simple to advanced examples that cover off on  Data Structures, Working with Chart Series, Styling Charts, and Chart Interactivity.   Pretty much everything is focused on Flex charting, versus other components.  I will also be covering off on some of the open source components I have previously released like the DataSet Component, as well as one or two new components I have created that make it easier to customize Flex Charts.

I hope to see you there, and please don’t be shy about introducing yourself if you have read this blog.   MAX is a really fun conference and I am looking forward to it.

UPDATE 11/14/2008:  According to the MAX scheduler it says my session is SOLD OUT, but don’t worry if it is like any other MAX event it is first come, first serve – so just be there early.   I also realized the session description is slightly different than the content.  It is hard in 60 minutes to get too in depth about anything, my session will show different techniques for dealing with data, chart appearance and styling, and user interaction within Flex charting.