Hi, I've worked remotely on many Flex projects over many years (since Flex 1.5).
> In all probability these will be remote developers so I'm thinking of > setting up VMWare VM machines with an IDE, Tomcat server, etc so the > developer won't have to spend time with setup, is this a good approach? Assumes they have a very fast connection I'd tend toward let them having there own set up. Also some Flex devs prefer working on macs rather than windows for instance. > Currently I'm using Flash Builder 4.6, I've looked at IntelliJ and FDT (I > find FDT a bit on the expensive side) for group development is there a > better solution? Those are the 3 main editors of choice for Flex development that I'm aware of in common use. You can do everything by hand in a text editor and via the command line but each of those IDE have good productivity features that make development a lot faster. > Any suggestions for Project Management? I'm a fan of basecamp but there' s lots of other online PM tools/systems out there. Others I've use and liked include unfuddle and redmine. Look at Software Craftsmanship and Agile methodologies and see if they are good fit for your project. Also use JIRA or similar for reporting bugs. > How to manage file versions and updates, I've been testing SVN and something > called OwnCloud any input? Use SVN or Git. Pick whatever your developers are familiar with and keep it simple if possible. For online hosting I'd suggest github, bitbucket, or beanstalk. > Any suggested way to "loosely" supervise time spent on actually working on > the projects? Daily or weekly time sheets? Make sure developers check in changes frequently (daily) and don't work in local branches too much, monitor checkins and JIRA and conduct code reviews. > Any input, advice or references concerning managing group software > development, especially in regards to Flex would be greatly appreciated!! Nothing I can think off that's Flex specific. I'd read up on some the classics (if you don't know then) like the Mythical Man Month by Frederick Brooks, People Ware by Tom DeMarko and the Joel on Software blog has some great articles. The PMBOK (project managers book of knowledge) is also work a read although I found older versions of it more applicable to smaller projects. Thanks, Justin
