Interview: Shea Frederick. Author of Learning ExtJS

Shea Frederick is currently implementing the latest Ext framework as a Web Applications Developer for an online retailer and exploring other emerging languages and frameworks in his free time.

Shea has spent the majority of his career in web development and first began developing web applications for Tower Records that combined the call center interface with inventory and fulfillment. Since then, Shea has worked as a developer for several companies – building and implementing various commerce solutions, content management systems, and lead tracking program. Integrating new technologies to make a better application has been a driving point for Shea’s work. He strives to use open source libraries as they are often the launching pad for the most creative technological advances. He has worked closely with the ExtJS creators since inception to create cutting edge web interactivity and has contributed to its growth by writing documentation, tutorials, example code and a book for Packt. He has remained an active community member for the modern yui-ext library – ExtJS. On the rare occasion he's away from his keyboard, you can find him mountain biking or skiing.

Shea is one of the authors of the Learning ExtJS book which takes a look at the basics of using Ext JS, giving you the knowledge required to create rich user experiences beyond typical web interfaces.

Shea maintains a popular blog of his work in ExtJS at http://www.vinylfox.com.

How did you find the overall experience of writing your book for Packt?
Enjoyable. Time-consuming. Frustrating. Informative. Fun. Rewarding. Challenging.

During the writing process, did you come across any issues/ difficulties that affected your writing and how did you overcome these?
Writing a book on a programming subject really forced me to learn about all the tiny bits and pieces you might not normally use. I am thankful for co-authors who were familiar with the parts I don't use very often, like trees and awkward data formats. It also forced me to find ways to summarize concepts and look at the 'big picture'. Each chapter had a summary, and that really kept me on track to make sure that the book was going in the right direction. For many of the chapters, I found that balancing the example code with progress through the concepts was challenging. I had to keep the code samples short enough to understand but still progress forward into each topic. And, according to my wife, I never use enough words. There were times when I really had to flesh out my writing, to go through each concept in smaller steps and more detail than I anticipated.

Whilst writing your book, did you find that it overshadowed personal life in any way? How did you deal with this?
Writing a book takes a great deal of time, so I had to spend the free time I had more productively if I wanted to continue the important parts of my personal life – that meant cutting out sitting on the couch watching TV, along with other wasteful tasks.

Was there anything interesting that happened during the writing of the book?
I moved across the country, started a new job, bought a new house, and started racing mountain bikes. So in some ways, the book was the most constant thing I had going.

How did our Acquisition Editors help you - what kind of things did they help you with and how did they support you throughout the writing process?
My Acquisition Editor not only initiated the project, but he provided a lot of insight into how to separate concepts into chunks that make sense within each chapter and how our readers learn from books. He was instrumental in developing the outline for the book, and in the end, in finding co-authors to help complete it.

Our authors usually have full-time jobs and or/ previous commitments whilst writing for us. Was this the case for you and how did you approach managing your time?
My full time job had to come first, but my employer was more than willing to be flexible about my work schedule. Once they knew I was writing a book and realized how cool it was to have a resident expert as a member of staff, they were accommodating to let me work fewer hours when I had a deadline coming up.

What benefits did writing a book bring to your specialist area?
Ah, this one is fun. Ext really is a new framework, so ours was the first book that came out discussing it. Because my co-authors and I were able to put the features of the framework into the perspective of larger projects, I think we jump-started quite a few developers into using Ext that might have overlooked it otherwise. The book has enabled me to get even more into the development community.

Do you have any advice for other authors who may be interested in writing for Packt, but are still unsure?
My advice – don't plan on getting rich – but the first time someone approaches you and says “I wouldn't have been able to learn this without reading your book” all of the long nights and weekends you spent writing are worth it.

What projects, if any, are you working on at the moment?
I'm working on a couple of fun projects right now – one of my favorites is a firebug plug-in that enables inspection and interaction with ExtJS components. Another is an AIR application that utilizes ExtJS for the UI.