All Over Software Jobs: [flexcoders] Re: Flex alternatives

Friday, January 13, 2012

I have used Flex since 2006, and I have used ZKoss within the last year. I can tell you that the learning curve of ZKoss is much lower than Flex, and the development cycle is even faster. In your spare time, if you're curious like me and like to check out different technologies, give it a whirl, just so you'll have a good comparison. I think you'll be impressed - even if you don't ever use it for a project. I think you'll agree that HTML/CSS/JS is not a faster development environment, regardless of IDE.

Would truly love to hear your assessment of it at some point.

Don't get me wrong. I was always a big fan of Flex and touted its virtues whenever I could over the past several years. So, I have nothing against it. I'll be using it for years as I maintain existing projects written in Flex. But, with respect, I think you do a disservice to continue to tell developers to use Flex. You are only telling them to build a backlog of projects that will have to be converted one day. But, I understand you work for Adobe and can't very well say exactly what you think developers should do.

Ron

--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Alex Harui <aharui@...> wrote:
>
> Flex and FlashBuilder are not part of Adobe's HTML strategy per-se. FlashBuilder is being directed towards Gaming in Flash, Flex is being donated to the community. It is the community that has lots of investment in the Flex/AS/FP stack that are looking reworking the Flex paradigm to output to the HTML/CSS/JS stack.
>
> Meanwhile Adobe is not only updating Dreamweaver (see the PhoneGap features added in 5.5) but also looking at new tools for new development methodologies. While classic Java has been around for a while, and HTML/CSS/JS will likely meet your 15 year requirement, the question remains whether you will be willing to use more efficient and powerful development frameworks and methodologies over those years. If you don't, you might lose competitive advantage as your competition gets their products finished better or faster, but if you do, you run the risk of choosing a new set of tools that turns out not to have lasting power. Tough call, no right answer, the choice is yours.
>
> It looks like the Apache Flex folks are going to try to provide one of those new sets of tools by making it possible to use the Flex paradigm for the HTML stack.