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 Name:
Detlef Beyer
Location: Cologne, Germany
User Group: none (don't know of a working
one in Germany)
E-Mail: d.beyer@hermes.de
Homepage: http://www.hermes.de/KITE/
Birthday: 04th of December 1961
Education: 7 years at the university
to become a geologist, the whole life to be a programmer...
Nickname that I hate: Deti
Job Title that best describes what I do:
crazy magic
Years in Multimedia: > 10 (some very
early steps may fall more into the database area)
The last good book I read: Dean Falk's
"Braindance"
Favorite music to crunch code by: Jazz
(Art Ensemble of Chicago, Carla Bley, Steve Turre)
If I wasn't doing this, I'd be: last
seen falling off the edge of the world ....
I've always wanted to meet: Terry Pratchet,
Tom Robbins
When they make my life story into a movie,
they'll cast: Steve Martin
Currently working on: XML tool, several
customer projects
Three words that best describe me:
koelle alaaf (sorry, only two words - in our local language)
Browser preference: NS4 because of
a missing alternative
If I had a time machine, I'd go (pick a year):
9 month before the 20.4.1889 to disturb a specific couple and prevent
the birth of an evil fascist.
DOUG: What is the business environment like in Germany for web-development? What opportunities are there?
DB: We have fewer professional multimedia developers over here and on the same hand, the customers are more rare and strongly conservative. If email is a normal tool for a company in the USA, you will have a hard time to find such a company in Germany. They do have email now, but it's like an old toy hidden in the garret - you know it is there, but it is not really present in your day to day life. It's not an easy task to integrate a web-site into those old fashioned communication structures. This also has the consequence that the amount of money the companies will spend for their web-site is very limited and many sites are running as an experiment without a strategic plan behind. Much of the multimedia stuff is controlled by the big advertising agencies here in Germany -- without being as qualified as they have to be. So I would expect a growing market for freelance developers. It's not all bad here in Germany, but I have to mention that the communication costs are 15 times higher than in the USA. As a result, a big amount of the money a company invests into a web-development will not reach the developers.
DOUG: What sort of projects do you typically work on and what are your responsibilities?
DB: Hard to tell since every project differs so much from the previous. In general I'm responsible for most of the director programming in my little company. We are a funny, sometimes crazy, but most of the time creative and competent team of 7 full time and several freelance people. As the owner of the company I'm not only a developer, but have to solve several additional tasks I don't like at all. For example the frustrating moments when I try to get some money out of my bank clerk.
We are doing much Web-stuff, without myself doing any html or Javascript for customer needs. I only enter the html-World to embed my shockwave movies or for some private stuff like the Kite Paradise.
To catch some daylight sometimes, I also like to be a teacher for any multimedia stuff. I did this for some years at the university to teach graphic design students the basics of the new media. Very interessting job, that gave me many new ideas. Last but not least I write articles for some German computer magazines - different task again and a chance to get some software packs really early.
DOUG: You have been very vocal on the listservs about the new Quicktime 3.0 licensing changes. Could it be that you're still angry about Apple's decision to drop the Newton?
DB: This may have affected my emotional embedding, since the Newton was again a unique development by Apple -- to die because of stupid marketing. I liked to develop for the Newton, but it's a long time since the last customer asked me to do something for this device. The new QT3 licensing gives me some real trouble, because I do many corporate CD-ROMs and major companies don't like to do free advertising for Apple. I don't like the feeling of being totally ignored (in my role as a developer) by a company I fought so many battles for. I'm most of the times confronted with customers who only demand a Windows version and just because I offer the Mac part for free, they do a x-platform CD-ROM...
Back to the PDA part of your question: the 3Com Pilot is not as smart as the Newton, but more customers of mine realized over the last 4 months that this is an interesting device, than ever even realized the Newton existed. I really like to develop for PDAs and there may be an opportunity for me to do something nice on the Palm in the next future. Wouldn't it be great to have Java on the PalmPilot and a way to get the Java Exporter code to the PDA? This would be a great new opportunity for director developers (and myself :).
DOUG: On you're site, you're integrating Java, JavaScript, and Shockwave. What do you see as the advantages of each of these scripting options? How can they best work together?
DB: Complex questions. The big opportunity of Javascript is the client-site execution. We had several problems with our Web-Servers slowing down because of the heavy use by some PERL-CGIs. With DHTML, Javascript will become even more important and I think we will see very complex solutions done with this simple script language. Javascript was IMHO not built to do such complex programs, since the missing debugger and the embedding into html are not comfortable to handle. So I switch to Java on more difficult tasks.
Java programming, compared to Director, takes some time, but there is close to nothing you can't do with a highlevel language like Java. Also the OOP concept in Java is more complete then with Lingo and I like that too. The most interesting thing for me at the moment is the new Java Exporter for Director. This tool melds together two of my favorite development platforms: the fast, but limited Director coding and the time consuming, but unlimited capabilities of Java.
I see the Java Exporter not only as a new option for director developers, but as a complete new tool in the area of Java IDEs.
Shockwave is still my standard platform for animated and interactive web-parts. Shockwave is much faster and more stable than Java but we know of those little problems connected to an ugly little piece of software called "PlugIn"... A PlugIn is like baking your favorite cake, realizing just after you start that you left the eggs at the supermarket - in case of European developers, we need a transatlantic flight to get to the supermarket.
DOUG: Shockwave -- and the web in general -- was supposed to make development completely independent of platform differences. Now we have to deal with Browser differences! Do you have a strategy for Netscape/IE compatibility?
DB: Since Shockwave never hit the UNIX platform, which is very important for the Web, I don't see shockwave as "completely independent of platform differences". The problem of two major browser versions, uncountable minor sisters, is hard to solve at the moment. I totally gave up with Explorer 4 on the Mac, but still have to test at least 8 different combinations of browsers/platforms. If I like to use an Xtra with my shockwave movie, things are getting even worse. A better solution would be to create my own custom installer and include it on every customer's web-site -- but never found a customer who liked to pay the shockwave license fee.
A very good help is AndrŽ, our web-developer. We worked out some helpful Javascripts/VB Scripts to get out of the browser Babylon. AndrŽ is also my No.1 source for PERL scripts, since he can do them in maybe 10% of the time I would need. One of the things I like most in the whole multimedia business, is the strong demand for team work.
DOUG: I've been using your TAGGuard Xtra for generating shockwave tags. Any other tools in development?
DB: Did you see my Robin Hood Xtra? I did this one just to find a working and acceptable solution for the problems the new QT3 license gave us. Seems to be a reasonably good idea since Apple will publish a similar Xtra in the next time -- but I don't think the Apple Xtra will remove the spam movie after finishing the projector :)
There is some progress with my XML work - but nothing to show so far. This will grow into something nice I hope, maybe comparable to the Avatar idea or a simple external database for Director media. If I only would find more time to play around on this one. Also, if Macromedia releases the final Java Exporter, I will do some more Java stuff like the PeetsDraw Xtra. A working JDBC interface would be good thing to do. The poor thing about the Java Exporter: it will give us something really new and after a short time we all would like to see the new functions inside our "normal" Director work - without any chance to make it happen.
>
There were some rumors about a third party developer, doing a Java interface build into an Xtra for Director 6 - nice idea I think.
Oops, nearly forgotten to tell you another coming tool: I'm close to finish a set of parent scripts and behaviors to access a FMPro database through NetLingo.
The 24 hour limit is a real stopper each day - if somebody could find a workaround for this nightmare, it would help a lot. The more powerful my most loved tool, Director 6, gets, the more ideas hit my brain. So time is getting shorter every day.
DOUG: What do you want to be working on a year from now? What are the obstacles you must overcome to make that happen?
DB: There are some thrilling concepts for an advanced hybrid CD-ROM. I would like to get around those browsers and build a XML-controlled environment. The media should be controlled depending on the platform and performance, so everything will work off- and online. Integrating a multiplayer dungeon, not only for gaming, but to build up a communication structure between all members of this "world". To solve the communication tasks the user gets a graphical programming language, very easy to use. The resulting CD-ROM will be different on every PC - after some time and look more like an interactive magazine with an integrated layout team, then a traditional CD-ROM. This project would need some time and/or a customer willing to pay for this CD-ROM.
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